5 ms·

This is a cudgel that will be used by both/all sides as they see fit to stifle narratives and manipulate platforms they disagree with. The only option is to pu

by mc32 3y ago

This is a cudgel that will be used by both/all sides as they see fit to stifle narratives and manipulate platforms they disagree with. The only option is to pursue freedom of speech because any method to define what is acceptable and not will be manipulated by those who can. As you can tell by the greyness of this comment, some people have a problem with not being able to manipulate speech. For reference, look at the definition and usage of the word terrorism over the last 30 years. Compare 1990s' usage with today's usage. You would think people knew what terrorism meant back then --like defining acceptable speech today. What will it mean tomorrow?

ribosometronome 3y ago
Few free speech advocates ever seem to lead with the crux of not-actually-Voltaire's "I Disapprove of What You Say, But I Will Defend to the Death Your Right to Say It" by defending the kinds of speech people actually disapprove of.
- VectorLock 3y ago
  Self-described "free speech arm of the free speech movement" found out that defending _all speech_ really isn't the best idea.
root_axis 3y ago
> The only option is to pursue freedom of speech Nobody actually wants this though. Everyone agrees there are certain types of speech that should be moderated or banned. Different factions have different opinions about what the moderation should apply to, but everyone wants to moderate. For example: literally every popular website in existence.
- Vecr 3y ago
  Yes, I know what you're going to say, "nobody" does not mean literally nobody, but in this case there are (somewhat) prominent views that do literally mean no speech should be banned.
  - root_axis 3y ago
    I would argue they're not prominent, there are some fringe individuals who might hold this philosophy, but not any organization that actually runs a site where users can speak, and certainly nobody involved in politics regardless of their political beliefs.
  - JumpCrisscross 3y ago
    > there are (somewhat) prominent views that do literally mean no speech should be banned Do you have an example that’s been presented coherently? Every one I’ve seen creates caveats for, at their worst, speech they don’t like, and at their best, spam. (The latter seeming like a small exception until we get around to precisely defining it.)
  - dessimus 3y ago
    >there are (somewhat) prominent views that do literally mean no speech should be banned. Yes, "no speech should be banned" right up until it's about posting the publicly available flight logs tracking a private jet, and then its not cool.
    - mc32 3y ago
      You know, as long as it's not the government dictating it. Or, look at it this way, if this stifler of free speech were to add the flight logs of prominent opponents of his, I bet some of the complainers complaining about his suppression would clamor for suppression.
- koolba 3y ago
  > Everyone agrees there certain types of speech that should be moderated or banned. Setting aside direct calls to violence, there’s plenty of free speech absolutists that are fine with idiots saying whatever they’d like to whoever they’d like.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - toomuchtodo 3y ago
    > 65% of Americans support tech companies moderating false information online and 55% support the U.S. government taking these steps. These shares have increased since 2018. > Americans are even more supportive of tech companies (71%) and the U.S. government (60%) restricting extremely violent content online. > Democrats are more supportive than Republicans of tech companies and the U.S. government restricting extremely violent content and false information online. The partisan gap in support for restricting false information has grown substantially since 2018. https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/07/20/most-americans-favor-restrictions-on-false-information-violent-content-online/ https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/07/20/most-amer... ("Pew Research: Most Americans favor restrictions on false information, violent content online") "Free speech absolutists" are a vocal minority.
  - root_axis 3y ago
    I don't think that's true. There are very few people who approve of spam, doxxing and revenge porn for example. There are always exceptions.
  - Terr_ 3y ago
    To twist a Mike Tyson quote: "Everybody's a free-speech absolutist until the speech causes them to get punched in the face."
    - Vecr 3y ago
      Well, for some people it's more like "Everybody's a free-speech absolutist until the speech causes them ~~to get punched in the face~~ shoot someone in the face for trying to punch them in the face." And even then some of them probably still are free speech absolutists.
- mc32 3y ago
  There are situations where you don't want people to put others in immediate danger by their speech, like, for example, setting off a stampede. But still, the old, yelling fire in a crowded theater, is not in itself illegal.
  - root_axis 3y ago
    Legality is not in question here, only that speech which is legal that people prefer to ban.
- pdonis 3y ago
  > everyone wants to moderate For a privately owned website, moderation is not a violation of anyone's freedom of speech. Your freedom of speech does not give you the right to insist that you can post on a website that I own. If I don't like what you say on my website, I can ban you. You can go get your own website if you want a place to say what you want. These cases are specifically about government officials and how they manage their accounts on social media platforms. What I find disappointing is that nobody appears to be talking about the obvious solution: an official's personal account should only be for personal posts. If the government they are officials of wants an official account to post official statements on, they should set up a separate one solely for that purpose. Then the whole issue the court is trying to deal with here would evaporate.
  - JumpCrisscross 3y ago
    > For a privately owned website, moderation is not a violation of anyone's freedom of speech It’s not a violation of the First Amendment. It is a curtailment of someone’s freedom of speech. > an official's personal account should only be for personal posts. If the government they are officials of wants an official account to post official statements on, they should set up a separate one solely for that purpose These rulings effectively say that if you taint your personal account with official business, you have to treat it like an official account. That should lead to a best practice as you describe.
    - MisterBastahrd 3y ago
      > It is a curtailment of someone’s freedom of speech. The right to a venue and the right to speak are two entirely different things.
      - JumpCrisscross 3y ago
        > right to a venue and the right to speak are two entirely different things They’re both components of the freedom of speech. The origin of our modern tradition of free speech is tied to Parliament, where the right to speak and venue were inextricably intertwined [1]. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Declaration_of_Right,_1689 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Declaration_of_Right,_1689 No. 9
- burnished 3y ago
  The mention of factions is opposed to the thesis of 'everyone'. Things like spam are not typically considered factional, so un-controversial in fact that most people don't even think of spam as a form of speech or its moderation as a form of censorship.
  - root_axis 3y ago
    "Spam" is in the eye of the beholder, like "hate speech". There are obvious cases and there are times when the label is applied because someone doesn't like the speech.
- stale2002 3y ago
  > Everyone agrees there certain types of speech that should be moderated or banned. This is a false equivalence. Someone who is ok with literal direct calls to violence against individuals, being censored by the government, after someone's full due process rights to a trial are exercised, is much different than someone who wants most of their political opponents censored without any due process arbitrarily.
- jimbob45 3y ago
  Nobody actually wants this though Pretty sure I do. I just want comprehensive rules that are publicly and readily available from the get-go, I want total transparency on behalf of moderation, and I don't want hidden actions only available to moderators. Further, I'd like all moderator actions to be publicly auditable. Something like reddit has hidden moderator actions, shadowbans, is not auditable, and has hidden rules that only some users are subject to. HN is probably the closest thing to my ideal forum but I'd like algorithms to be publicly viewable and dang's actions to be publicly auditable.
  - krapp 3y ago
    If you don't trust a platform without transparent moderation, why would you trust their "publicly auditable" modlogs? What power do you think being able to "audit" moderator actions gives you?
shadowpho 3y ago
>The only option is to pursue freedom of speech because any method to define what is acceptable and not will be manipulated by those who can. Sorta like 4chan? I wonder why it’s not popular… The reality of the internet is you need to moderate.
- mc32 3y ago
  The question is about the government getting to say what should and should not be moderated beyond what is already illegal.
  - ryandrake 3y ago
    Anybody, including the government, should be allowed to contact a publisher, point to something it is publishing on its site, and ask, “Hey, do you think that might violate your terms or editorial standards?” and leave the ultimate decision to the publisher. My understanding is that this is all that happened with Twitter.
    - cgriswald 3y ago
      I agree that is the ideal situation but I don’t know that it’s a good way to do things. It is significantly more likely the answer will be “Yes, we should remove that” regardless of whether it violates their editorial standards if the question comes from power, even if no threat is implied or intended and the wording is exactly the same.
    - mc32 3y ago
      The public, yes. The government? No. They ought allow any positive and negative or neutral speech about them or their policies or policies they are responsible for or contemplating. And definitely not if it has anty8ng to do with elections and interfering with elections of their own, or others'.
      - ryandrake 3y ago
        So if someone posts that age-old hoax/troll claiming “Remember! Election Day for Party X is one day later!” The government should not be able to warn the social media company about election hoaxes they are hosting?

by mc32 3y ago

ribosometronome 3y ago

Few free speech advocates ever seem to lead with the crux of not-actually-Voltaire's "I Disapprove of What You Say, But I Will Defend to the Death Your Right to Say It" by defending the kinds of speech people actually disapprove of.

VectorLock 3y ago
Self-described "free speech arm of the free speech movement" found out that defending _all speech_ really isn't the best idea.

root_axis 3y ago

> The only option is to pursue freedom of speech Nobody actually wants this though. Everyone agrees there are certain types of speech that should be moderated or banned. Different factions have different opinions about what the moderation should apply to, but everyone wants to moderate. For example: literally every popular website in existence.

Vecr 3y ago
Yes, I know what you're going to say, "nobody" does not mean literally nobody, but in this case there are (somewhat) prominent views that do literally mean no speech should be banned.
- root_axis 3y ago
  I would argue they're not prominent, there are some fringe individuals who might hold this philosophy, but not any organization that actually runs a site where users can speak, and certainly nobody involved in politics regardless of their political beliefs.
- JumpCrisscross 3y ago
  > there are (somewhat) prominent views that do literally mean no speech should be banned Do you have an example that’s been presented coherently? Every one I’ve seen creates caveats for, at their worst, speech they don’t like, and at their best, spam. (The latter seeming like a small exception until we get around to precisely defining it.)
- dessimus 3y ago
  >there are (somewhat) prominent views that do literally mean no speech should be banned. Yes, "no speech should be banned" right up until it's about posting the publicly available flight logs tracking a private jet, and then its not cool.
  - mc32 3y ago
    You know, as long as it's not the government dictating it. Or, look at it this way, if this stifler of free speech were to add the flight logs of prominent opponents of his, I bet some of the complainers complaining about his suppression would clamor for suppression.
koolba 3y ago
> Everyone agrees there certain types of speech that should be moderated or banned. Setting aside direct calls to violence, there’s plenty of free speech absolutists that are fine with idiots saying whatever they’d like to whoever they’d like.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- toomuchtodo 3y ago
  > 65% of Americans support tech companies moderating false information online and 55% support the U.S. government taking these steps. These shares have increased since 2018. > Americans are even more supportive of tech companies (71%) and the U.S. government (60%) restricting extremely violent content online. > Democrats are more supportive than Republicans of tech companies and the U.S. government restricting extremely violent content and false information online. The partisan gap in support for restricting false information has grown substantially since 2018. https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/07/20/most-americans-favor-restrictions-on-false-information-violent-content-online/ https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/07/20/most-amer... ("Pew Research: Most Americans favor restrictions on false information, violent content online") "Free speech absolutists" are a vocal minority.
- root_axis 3y ago
  I don't think that's true. There are very few people who approve of spam, doxxing and revenge porn for example. There are always exceptions.
- Terr_ 3y ago
  To twist a Mike Tyson quote: "Everybody's a free-speech absolutist until the speech causes them to get punched in the face."
  - Vecr 3y ago
    Well, for some people it's more like "Everybody's a free-speech absolutist until the speech causes them ~~to get punched in the face~~ shoot someone in the face for trying to punch them in the face." And even then some of them probably still are free speech absolutists.
mc32 3y ago
There are situations where you don't want people to put others in immediate danger by their speech, like, for example, setting off a stampede. But still, the old, yelling fire in a crowded theater, is not in itself illegal.
- root_axis 3y ago
  Legality is not in question here, only that speech which is legal that people prefer to ban.
pdonis 3y ago
> everyone wants to moderate For a privately owned website, moderation is not a violation of anyone's freedom of speech. Your freedom of speech does not give you the right to insist that you can post on a website that I own. If I don't like what you say on my website, I can ban you. You can go get your own website if you want a place to say what you want. These cases are specifically about government officials and how they manage their accounts on social media platforms. What I find disappointing is that nobody appears to be talking about the obvious solution: an official's personal account should only be for personal posts. If the government they are officials of wants an official account to post official statements on, they should set up a separate one solely for that purpose. Then the whole issue the court is trying to deal with here would evaporate.
- JumpCrisscross 3y ago
  > For a privately owned website, moderation is not a violation of anyone's freedom of speech It’s not a violation of the First Amendment. It is a curtailment of someone’s freedom of speech. > an official's personal account should only be for personal posts. If the government they are officials of wants an official account to post official statements on, they should set up a separate one solely for that purpose These rulings effectively say that if you taint your personal account with official business, you have to treat it like an official account. That should lead to a best practice as you describe.
  - MisterBastahrd 3y ago
    > It is a curtailment of someone’s freedom of speech. The right to a venue and the right to speak are two entirely different things.
    - JumpCrisscross 3y ago
      > right to a venue and the right to speak are two entirely different things They’re both components of the freedom of speech. The origin of our modern tradition of free speech is tied to Parliament, where the right to speak and venue were inextricably intertwined [1]. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Declaration_of_Right,_1689 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Declaration_of_Right,_1689 No. 9
burnished 3y ago
The mention of factions is opposed to the thesis of 'everyone'. Things like spam are not typically considered factional, so un-controversial in fact that most people don't even think of spam as a form of speech or its moderation as a form of censorship.
- root_axis 3y ago
  "Spam" is in the eye of the beholder, like "hate speech". There are obvious cases and there are times when the label is applied because someone doesn't like the speech.
stale2002 3y ago
> Everyone agrees there certain types of speech that should be moderated or banned. This is a false equivalence. Someone who is ok with literal direct calls to violence against individuals, being censored by the government, after someone's full due process rights to a trial are exercised, is much different than someone who wants most of their political opponents censored without any due process arbitrarily.
jimbob45 3y ago
Nobody actually wants this though Pretty sure I do. I just want comprehensive rules that are publicly and readily available from the get-go, I want total transparency on behalf of moderation, and I don't want hidden actions only available to moderators. Further, I'd like all moderator actions to be publicly auditable. Something like reddit has hidden moderator actions, shadowbans, is not auditable, and has hidden rules that only some users are subject to. HN is probably the closest thing to my ideal forum but I'd like algorithms to be publicly viewable and dang's actions to be publicly auditable.
- krapp 3y ago
  If you don't trust a platform without transparent moderation, why would you trust their "publicly auditable" modlogs? What power do you think being able to "audit" moderator actions gives you?

shadowpho 3y ago

>The only option is to pursue freedom of speech because any method to define what is acceptable and not will be manipulated by those who can. Sorta like 4chan? I wonder why it’s not popular… The reality of the internet is you need to moderate.

mc32 3y ago
The question is about the government getting to say what should and should not be moderated beyond what is already illegal.
- ryandrake 3y ago
  Anybody, including the government, should be allowed to contact a publisher, point to something it is publishing on its site, and ask, “Hey, do you think that might violate your terms or editorial standards?” and leave the ultimate decision to the publisher. My understanding is that this is all that happened with Twitter.
  - cgriswald 3y ago
    I agree that is the ideal situation but I don’t know that it’s a good way to do things. It is significantly more likely the answer will be “Yes, we should remove that” regardless of whether it violates their editorial standards if the question comes from power, even if no threat is implied or intended and the wording is exactly the same.
  - mc32 3y ago
    The public, yes. The government? No. They ought allow any positive and negative or neutral speech about them or their policies or policies they are responsible for or contemplating. And definitely not if it has anty8ng to do with elections and interfering with elections of their own, or others'.
    - ryandrake 3y ago
      So if someone posts that age-old hoax/troll claiming “Remember! Election Day for Party X is one day later!” The government should not be able to warn the social media company about election hoaxes they are hosting?