6 ms·

I may be wrong, but from what I've seen, the majority of "prevention of other people from speaking" is done to people who are not really constructive and muddy

by cauch 3y ago

I may be wrong, but from what I've seen, the majority of "prevention of other people from speaking" is done to people who are not really constructive and muddy the water. The article mention Milo Yiannopolous, for example. If you look at the person, it is quite clear that his contribution will not help learning anything, just spreading cliché and create polarisation that will both destroy intelligent debate and possibly push for unfair decisions that will have a real impact on people.

putzdown 3y ago
But surely "not really constructive" and "muddy the water" implies a judgment—a pre-judgment—that the speech itself ought to be allowed to face. If he speaks and his ideas are "not really constructive" and "muddy the water", then the listeners can decide what to do with the ideas, both within their own minds and in conversation afterward. If he's not allowed to speak, then the people preventing the speech are enforcing their own opinions by violence. This behavior actually implies that his ideas are of more merit, because if the ideas were not really constructive or entirely lacked value, then the listeners could dismiss them thoughtfully. Or could it be that modern students don't have the ability to think carefully about or make good judgments about speech?
- komali2 3y ago
  > a pre-judgment In the case of Milo, this is a fair pre-judgement. Are we expected to ignore a person's entire corpus of work and treat them as an untouched field of snow every time they present themselves? We're to "rehash" their position every time they speak? That seems silly. People like Milo form their careers on rage-bait. Shouting him down is the same as simply banning a troll or banning flame-bait on forums. For the others, for the most part it's the same - reactionary speakers, especially in the USA, are mostly uninterested in good faith debate. They leverage rhetorical fallacy and outright disinformation to muddy the waters. See: the Trump election conspiracies, the antivax movement, the rewriting of the cultural history of gender fluidity to attack trans people's existence, etc etc etc.
  - putzdown 3y ago
    It’s not clear to me that either political “side” has the corner on these faults. But even if they did, why not allow audiences to make their own judgments? Universities don’t have to provide auditoriums or catering. They shouldn’t have to provide extra security, if free speech is honored by students. Why can’t listeners simply walk away? I truly don’t understand.
    - komali2 3y ago
      Conversely, why aren't you respecting the free speech rights of students to speak out against people sharing hateful ideologies on their campus? (Ben Shapiro coming to spread transphobia for example) For decades we've tolerated anti-woman's-rights activists shoving pictures of medical procedures into people's faces, and preachers telling students they're going to go to hell for being gay. That's ok, but protesting a transphobe isn't? I truly don't understand the double standard. Just kidding, I get it. Leftists face a double standard when it comes to free speech. Dare to speak with your colleagues and organize a union? The president himself will order you to shut up and get to work. Stand up and shout at a transphobe who is speaking through a sound system your tuition pays for? Get escorted out by a security detail you're also paying for. Shove fetus pictures into people's faces? No problem! Strap on swastikas and March through town? Police escort! Take a knee in front of a slaver statue? Pepper spray! The article is crocodile tears.
      - hotdogscout 3y ago
        >Shove fetus pictures into people's faces? No problem! Strap on swastikas and March through town? Police escort! If it's really no problem try doing it. You're not being realistic about the consequences of being disruptive.
        komali2 3y ago
        I'm not being realistic? You speaking from personal experience? Because I've been to many, many, protests, and I think I have a very good idea of the consequences of being disruptive, with the literal scars to show for it. I watched proud boys march with police escort. I dealt with people shaking fetus pictures in my face the third Friday of every month for four years when I'm just trying to get to the library. I witnessed firsthand the system's indifference or hostility to leftist protesting: the violence and arrests we faced at peaceful BLM sit-ins when proud boys meanwhile are allowed to walk around armed and shouting racial slurs at people. What personal experience are you drawing on to deny what I'm describing? What evidence?
- cauch 3y ago
  Do you have examples of people attempting to deplatform someone who has not expressed the content of their speech before? From what I can see, deplatforming attempts are in very large majority done towards people who already have demonstrated the quality of their ideas. > because if the ideas were not really constructive or entirely lacked value, then the listeners could dismiss them thoughtfully. If it was true, then racism, populism, or prejudice would not exist at all, because all of that is based on flawed logic that can be easily demonstrated. The reality is that intelligent debate LOSES in front of convenient fearmongering. Not because people are idiot, but simply mathematically: fearmongering is way easier and way more convincing than rationality https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandolini%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandolini%27s_law > Or could it be that modern students don't have the ability to think carefully about or make good judgments about speech? I would say that maybe modern students are smarter than before and go further than the naive logic of "if it's incorrect, the rational side will win", which has been demonstrated incorrect again and again in history.
  - bzebb 3y ago
    [flagged]
SamPatt 3y ago
Saying they aren't constructive and muddy the water implies there's some clear shared goals / values and an understanding of acceptable paths towards those goals / values. Isn't part of the point of controversial speakers that they're challenging that our goals and values are fully shared? It sounds like the speech is being judged before it's given. Maybe for speakers who have explicitly called for violence, this would be appropriate, but my guess is nearly zero of the speakers deplatformed were actually calling for violence.
- cauch 3y ago
  But would you say someone who says "I call for violence against pedophiles" deserves to be more deplatformed than someone who says "hm, I've heard that vaccine is linked to autism, just google it (and avoid classic media, they are all in the conspiracy anyway), and based on that take the correct decision for your children (knowing it will impact all the other children at school too)"? Not saying you are wrong, I just think it's way more subtle than what you present. (and I'm certainly not saying violence against pedophiles is the solution, just that it feels the consequences on the society seems way less bad than the second one)
  - SamPatt 3y ago
    Yes, the call for violence is more deserving of censorship. It's not about trying to make a net utilitarian estimate of how much harm each claim might make. It's about the acceptability of the behaviors proposed. We may not like the idea of people choosing different medical treatments than we'd choose, but that's their right. Even if it's a foolish behavior to reject modern science, they can choose foolishness. They cannot choose to employ violence against X group. Even if we'd agree it could improve society in some way, it's absurdly dangerous - who decides when someone is a part of X, etc?
    - cauch 3y ago
      > We may not like the idea of people choosing different medical treatments than we'd choose, but that's their right. Even if it's a foolish behavior to reject modern science, they can choose foolishness. The point I was trying to make is 1) the anti-vaxx discourse is spreading falsehood, the "violence against pedophiles" is not. The anti-vaxx is not just "opinion", is "demonstrably stupid opinion", while the second is "different moral than mine". 2) anti-vaxx will kill anti-vaxxer kids AND non-anti-vaxxer kids (because it will reenforce dangerous diseases). The anti-vaxx discourse is harming your innocent children, the "violence against pedophiles" will not harm innocent people (of course, you can imagine downward slide, but for sake of argument, let's say it's not the case here). You say that you are ok if people have different opinions, which themselves have direct impacts on people, but then, you say you are not ok if people have different opinions, because they have direct impacts on people. You have good point against the person having the "violence against pedophiles" opinion (and I agree with you that this opinion is not good), but you can build similar and exactly as valid arguments for the anti-vaxx one. So, it looks like that your choice of "violence is more deserving of censorship" is just you having specific moral opinion of what is worst and what is better. But other opinions are as valid as yours. So it's a bit strange to talk about "free speech" and explaining that someone is just wrong because they don't have exactly the same morals as you.
snehk 3y ago
> I may be wrong, but from what I've seen, the majority of "prevention of other people from speaking" is done to people who are not really constructive and muddy the water. No one on this planet (China, Russia, North Korea, for example) surpresses speech they say is constructive input. When people get jailed for online speech in Russia, for example, it's almost always classified as distributing hate speech. In 2018, Western Media even posted about "How a Social Media Post in Russia Can Land You in Jail[...]"[1]. Times have changed, I guess. [1] https://www.newsweek.com/2018/10/19/how-social-media-post-russia-can-land-you-jail-1157822.html https://www.newsweek.com/2018/10/19/how-social-media-post-ru...

by cauch 3y ago

putzdown 3y ago

But surely "not really constructive" and "muddy the water" implies a judgment—a pre-judgment—that the speech itself ought to be allowed to face. If he speaks and his ideas are "not really constructive" and "muddy the water", then the listeners can decide what to do with the ideas, both within their own minds and in conversation afterward. If he's not allowed to speak, then the people preventing the speech are enforcing their own opinions by violence. This behavior actually implies that his ideas are of more merit, because if the ideas were not really constructive or entirely lacked value, then the listeners could dismiss them thoughtfully. Or could it be that modern students don't have the ability to think carefully about or make good judgments about speech?

komali2 3y ago
> a pre-judgment In the case of Milo, this is a fair pre-judgement. Are we expected to ignore a person's entire corpus of work and treat them as an untouched field of snow every time they present themselves? We're to "rehash" their position every time they speak? That seems silly. People like Milo form their careers on rage-bait. Shouting him down is the same as simply banning a troll or banning flame-bait on forums. For the others, for the most part it's the same - reactionary speakers, especially in the USA, are mostly uninterested in good faith debate. They leverage rhetorical fallacy and outright disinformation to muddy the waters. See: the Trump election conspiracies, the antivax movement, the rewriting of the cultural history of gender fluidity to attack trans people's existence, etc etc etc.
- putzdown 3y ago
  It’s not clear to me that either political “side” has the corner on these faults. But even if they did, why not allow audiences to make their own judgments? Universities don’t have to provide auditoriums or catering. They shouldn’t have to provide extra security, if free speech is honored by students. Why can’t listeners simply walk away? I truly don’t understand.
  - komali2 3y ago
    Conversely, why aren't you respecting the free speech rights of students to speak out against people sharing hateful ideologies on their campus? (Ben Shapiro coming to spread transphobia for example) For decades we've tolerated anti-woman's-rights activists shoving pictures of medical procedures into people's faces, and preachers telling students they're going to go to hell for being gay. That's ok, but protesting a transphobe isn't? I truly don't understand the double standard. Just kidding, I get it. Leftists face a double standard when it comes to free speech. Dare to speak with your colleagues and organize a union? The president himself will order you to shut up and get to work. Stand up and shout at a transphobe who is speaking through a sound system your tuition pays for? Get escorted out by a security detail you're also paying for. Shove fetus pictures into people's faces? No problem! Strap on swastikas and March through town? Police escort! Take a knee in front of a slaver statue? Pepper spray! The article is crocodile tears.
    - hotdogscout 3y ago
      >Shove fetus pictures into people's faces? No problem! Strap on swastikas and March through town? Police escort! If it's really no problem try doing it. You're not being realistic about the consequences of being disruptive.
      - komali2 3y ago
        I'm not being realistic? You speaking from personal experience? Because I've been to many, many, protests, and I think I have a very good idea of the consequences of being disruptive, with the literal scars to show for it. I watched proud boys march with police escort. I dealt with people shaking fetus pictures in my face the third Friday of every month for four years when I'm just trying to get to the library. I witnessed firsthand the system's indifference or hostility to leftist protesting: the violence and arrests we faced at peaceful BLM sit-ins when proud boys meanwhile are allowed to walk around armed and shouting racial slurs at people. What personal experience are you drawing on to deny what I'm describing? What evidence?
cauch 3y ago
Do you have examples of people attempting to deplatform someone who has not expressed the content of their speech before? From what I can see, deplatforming attempts are in very large majority done towards people who already have demonstrated the quality of their ideas. > because if the ideas were not really constructive or entirely lacked value, then the listeners could dismiss them thoughtfully. If it was true, then racism, populism, or prejudice would not exist at all, because all of that is based on flawed logic that can be easily demonstrated. The reality is that intelligent debate LOSES in front of convenient fearmongering. Not because people are idiot, but simply mathematically: fearmongering is way easier and way more convincing than rationality https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandolini%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandolini%27s_law > Or could it be that modern students don't have the ability to think carefully about or make good judgments about speech? I would say that maybe modern students are smarter than before and go further than the naive logic of "if it's incorrect, the rational side will win", which has been demonstrated incorrect again and again in history.
- bzebb 3y ago
  [flagged]

SamPatt 3y ago

Saying they aren't constructive and muddy the water implies there's some clear shared goals / values and an understanding of acceptable paths towards those goals / values. Isn't part of the point of controversial speakers that they're challenging that our goals and values are fully shared? It sounds like the speech is being judged before it's given. Maybe for speakers who have explicitly called for violence, this would be appropriate, but my guess is nearly zero of the speakers deplatformed were actually calling for violence.

cauch 3y ago
But would you say someone who says "I call for violence against pedophiles" deserves to be more deplatformed than someone who says "hm, I've heard that vaccine is linked to autism, just google it (and avoid classic media, they are all in the conspiracy anyway), and based on that take the correct decision for your children (knowing it will impact all the other children at school too)"? Not saying you are wrong, I just think it's way more subtle than what you present. (and I'm certainly not saying violence against pedophiles is the solution, just that it feels the consequences on the society seems way less bad than the second one)
- SamPatt 3y ago
  Yes, the call for violence is more deserving of censorship. It's not about trying to make a net utilitarian estimate of how much harm each claim might make. It's about the acceptability of the behaviors proposed. We may not like the idea of people choosing different medical treatments than we'd choose, but that's their right. Even if it's a foolish behavior to reject modern science, they can choose foolishness. They cannot choose to employ violence against X group. Even if we'd agree it could improve society in some way, it's absurdly dangerous - who decides when someone is a part of X, etc?
  - cauch 3y ago
    > We may not like the idea of people choosing different medical treatments than we'd choose, but that's their right. Even if it's a foolish behavior to reject modern science, they can choose foolishness. The point I was trying to make is 1) the anti-vaxx discourse is spreading falsehood, the "violence against pedophiles" is not. The anti-vaxx is not just "opinion", is "demonstrably stupid opinion", while the second is "different moral than mine". 2) anti-vaxx will kill anti-vaxxer kids AND non-anti-vaxxer kids (because it will reenforce dangerous diseases). The anti-vaxx discourse is harming your innocent children, the "violence against pedophiles" will not harm innocent people (of course, you can imagine downward slide, but for sake of argument, let's say it's not the case here). You say that you are ok if people have different opinions, which themselves have direct impacts on people, but then, you say you are not ok if people have different opinions, because they have direct impacts on people. You have good point against the person having the "violence against pedophiles" opinion (and I agree with you that this opinion is not good), but you can build similar and exactly as valid arguments for the anti-vaxx one. So, it looks like that your choice of "violence is more deserving of censorship" is just you having specific moral opinion of what is worst and what is better. But other opinions are as valid as yours. So it's a bit strange to talk about "free speech" and explaining that someone is just wrong because they don't have exactly the same morals as you.

snehk 3y ago

> I may be wrong, but from what I've seen, the majority of "prevention of other people from speaking" is done to people who are not really constructive and muddy the water. No one on this planet (China, Russia, North Korea, for example) surpresses speech they say is constructive input. When people get jailed for online speech in Russia, for example, it's almost always classified as distributing hate speech. In 2018, Western Media even posted about "How a Social Media Post in Russia Can Land You in Jail[...]"[1]. Times have changed, I guess. [1] https://www.newsweek.com/2018/10/19/how-social-media-post-russia-can-land-you-jail-1157822.html https://www.newsweek.com/2018/10/19/how-social-media-post-ru...