4 ms·

I, for one, don't make accounts on services with a hate speech rate as high as current Twitter. I'd consider an account an indirect endorsement.

ranger_danger 2y ago
What is wrong with respecting people's right to have opinions you don't like? Isn't that what everyone wanted?
- celdon25 2y ago
  Free speech is hate speech according to some Edit: I just committed hate speech!
  - meroes 2y ago
    Tech bros. Never change
  - eqvinox 2y ago
    Nah my dude, HN just doesn't respond kindly to stupid comments.
    - celdon25 2y ago
      lol, not true. You get -4 points at the max. I downvote many stupid comments a day and the hordes just keep coming. Look at all the so-called "researchers" complaining about "open weights" in all the AI threads for exhibit A.
- OhMeadhbh 2y ago
  no.
- bee_rider 2y ago
  You have the right to say what you want, and the right to not associate with people who say certain types of things. Free speech doesn’t mean everybody has to hang around and listen.
- eqvinox 2y ago
  Respect and endorsement are not the same thing. Also, when tolerance is the goal, there must be an intolerance against intolerance - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance
  - celdon25 2y ago
    The problem with that is that the definition of intolerance tends to get weasel-worded into whatever argument suits the trolls.
    - AnthonyMouse 2y ago
      Not only that, the necessary resolution to the paradox is inherently narrow. Suppose you have some fools who assert that their opponents' ideas are too dangerous to be heard and have to be censored. Actually doing this is itself too dangerous to allow because once the censorship is in place it would be used to quash dissent and suppress the truth and people would be punished for challenging the prevailing dogma, even when they're right. But to prevent the harm you don't need a system to prevent people from proposing the harm, you need a system to prevent them from enacting it. It doesn't require censorship, it requires a robust system of checks and balances for protecting fundamental rights, so that the people who propose censorship or violence are thoroughly incapable of bringing them about.
      - eqvinox 2y ago
        I totally agree. The problem is that we don't have such a system, and as a result, the proposition of harm is in itself already a credible threat and therefore harmful. Personally speaking, to reduce that harm, there's not a lot I can do to make these propositions less credible, so I'm left with trying to give these threats less of a platform. I will note that from my perspective it is a logical conclusion that the insufficient policing and regulation of violence (and tools of violence) in the US in particular is directly detrimental to the expression of free speech.
        2y ago
- btreecat 2y ago
  > What is wrong with respecting people's right to have opinions you don't like? Isn't that what everyone wanted? To the first, the paradox of tolerance. To the second, we can use traffic numbers as a proxy as to what "most people" want and if that is increasingly or decreasingly found on the platform.
- eyelidlessness 2y ago
  Are you suggesting that, in respecting people’s right to have opinions GP doesn’t like, GP must make an account and, in their view, endorse those opinions? Or are you suggesting that in merely not liking or endorsing those opinions, GP is somehow denying their right? Does this just apply to Twitter, or should GP also join every forum allowing public signup, to give fair and balanced attention to each of their respective viewpoints?
  - AnthonyMouse 2y ago
    Using a service that doesn't suppress some opinions you don't like is not an endorsement of those opinions. Or else you'd better figure out whether it's easier to cancel your home internet after you no longer have a phone number or the other way around so you know which one to cancel first.
    - jimnotgym 2y ago
      Twitter does suppress opinions though. Go on there and criticise Donald Trump or Israeli policy in Gaza and see how quickly you get shadow banned. It probably works for liberal causes too. A few years ago criticising Jeremy Corbyn could get you shadow banned. I think any subject where you get a whole community sharing your heresy with each other and mass reporting you will suffer...except somehow the far right seem to be able to stay in my timeline despite my best efforts....because Twitter wants to trigger me.
      - AnthonyMouse 2y ago
        Their shadow banning system is and always has been just completely broken. It's probably the single most broken part of the site. A major problem with it is that the site is organized by user, so if you reply to someone then it's disproportionately their followers who see it. The quickest way to get shadow banned, then, is to try to debate zealots, because by doing it where they congregate they'll mass report you for contradicting their dogma and then you get shadow banned. It's not about what the dogma is, which is why everybody thinks the site is biased against them. They see reasonable people they agree with getting shadow banned, and yet tons of buttheads don't because they are mostly congregating with people who agree with them and the feed then showing their posts to random people doesn't get them shadow banned because most random people aren't zealots who report non-abusive posts just because they disagree with them. The algorithm is just asinine.
- jcranmer 2y ago
  The beef people have with Twitter after the Musk takeover is that it has objectively gotten worse at upholding free speech ideals, even as its new owner claims that doing so is one of his main reasons for taking over the social media company. Pre-takeover, the company was generally considered to be the best of the major outfits in standing up to censorious dipshit politicians [1], routinely challenging government attempts to enforce censorship on social media. But since the takeover, there has seemed to be a rather partisan tinge to its attempts to challenge government censorship: the company has notably caved to authoritarian regimes (like Turkey) where it used to challenge it, although it does tend to remain resolute in opposing leftish censorship attempts. Furthermore, the company has gone after people for saying ugly truths about the company [2], going so far as to encourage certain right-wing governors to investigate those people for criminal actions. The patently obvious mismatch between the free speech rhetoric and the censorious actions is the key thing here, not merely the (perceived) odiousness of the opinions on display. [1] Do note that being censorious dipshits is a thoroughly bipartisan activity. [2] Like, they literally admit that what was said is true in their own legal complaint, which just torpedoes everything from day one, without the respondent having to say anything!
  - AnthonyMouse 2y ago
    What we really need here is some anti-censorship technology that makes it so an authoritarian regime that tries to block its political opponents, fails. Make the ultimatum "block these accounts or we block the whole site" toothless. Have every major site using it by default so you're not just blocking Twitter but also Facebook and YouTube and Office365 and Wikipedia, and it acts as a generic VPN that allows anyone anywhere to access anything else their country tries to censor. In theory "just use a VPN" already does this, but it should be built into the browser so it happens automatically and unsophisticated users don't have to do anything to make it happen.
  - EdwardDiego 2y ago
    Also, the classic "cisgender is hate speech" thing Musk introduced is very far from free speech.
- EdwardDiego 2y ago
  What's wrong with respecting the commenter's right to boycott Twitter?
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- rsynnott 2y ago
  One can acknowledge that they are legally permitted to say whatever deranged crap they like, without necessarily having to walk amongst them. You can, in general, in democratic countries, say more or less what you like (some exclusions apply). However, you can’t generally compel others to listen to it.

ranger_danger 2y ago

What is wrong with respecting people's right to have opinions you don't like? Isn't that what everyone wanted?

celdon25 2y ago
Free speech is hate speech according to some Edit: I just committed hate speech!
- meroes 2y ago
  Tech bros. Never change
- eqvinox 2y ago
  Nah my dude, HN just doesn't respond kindly to stupid comments.
  - celdon25 2y ago
    lol, not true. You get -4 points at the max. I downvote many stupid comments a day and the hordes just keep coming. Look at all the so-called "researchers" complaining about "open weights" in all the AI threads for exhibit A.
OhMeadhbh 2y ago
no.
bee_rider 2y ago
You have the right to say what you want, and the right to not associate with people who say certain types of things. Free speech doesn’t mean everybody has to hang around and listen.
eqvinox 2y ago
Respect and endorsement are not the same thing. Also, when tolerance is the goal, there must be an intolerance against intolerance - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance
- celdon25 2y ago
  The problem with that is that the definition of intolerance tends to get weasel-worded into whatever argument suits the trolls.
  - AnthonyMouse 2y ago
    Not only that, the necessary resolution to the paradox is inherently narrow. Suppose you have some fools who assert that their opponents' ideas are too dangerous to be heard and have to be censored. Actually doing this is itself too dangerous to allow because once the censorship is in place it would be used to quash dissent and suppress the truth and people would be punished for challenging the prevailing dogma, even when they're right. But to prevent the harm you don't need a system to prevent people from proposing the harm, you need a system to prevent them from enacting it. It doesn't require censorship, it requires a robust system of checks and balances for protecting fundamental rights, so that the people who propose censorship or violence are thoroughly incapable of bringing them about.
    - eqvinox 2y ago
      I totally agree. The problem is that we don't have such a system, and as a result, the proposition of harm is in itself already a credible threat and therefore harmful. Personally speaking, to reduce that harm, there's not a lot I can do to make these propositions less credible, so I'm left with trying to give these threats less of a platform. I will note that from my perspective it is a logical conclusion that the insufficient policing and regulation of violence (and tools of violence) in the US in particular is directly detrimental to the expression of free speech.
      - 2y ago
btreecat 2y ago
> What is wrong with respecting people's right to have opinions you don't like? Isn't that what everyone wanted? To the first, the paradox of tolerance. To the second, we can use traffic numbers as a proxy as to what "most people" want and if that is increasingly or decreasingly found on the platform.
eyelidlessness 2y ago
Are you suggesting that, in respecting people’s right to have opinions GP doesn’t like, GP must make an account and, in their view, endorse those opinions? Or are you suggesting that in merely not liking or endorsing those opinions, GP is somehow denying their right? Does this just apply to Twitter, or should GP also join every forum allowing public signup, to give fair and balanced attention to each of their respective viewpoints?
- AnthonyMouse 2y ago
  Using a service that doesn't suppress some opinions you don't like is not an endorsement of those opinions. Or else you'd better figure out whether it's easier to cancel your home internet after you no longer have a phone number or the other way around so you know which one to cancel first.
  - jimnotgym 2y ago
    Twitter does suppress opinions though. Go on there and criticise Donald Trump or Israeli policy in Gaza and see how quickly you get shadow banned. It probably works for liberal causes too. A few years ago criticising Jeremy Corbyn could get you shadow banned. I think any subject where you get a whole community sharing your heresy with each other and mass reporting you will suffer...except somehow the far right seem to be able to stay in my timeline despite my best efforts....because Twitter wants to trigger me.
    - AnthonyMouse 2y ago
      Their shadow banning system is and always has been just completely broken. It's probably the single most broken part of the site. A major problem with it is that the site is organized by user, so if you reply to someone then it's disproportionately their followers who see it. The quickest way to get shadow banned, then, is to try to debate zealots, because by doing it where they congregate they'll mass report you for contradicting their dogma and then you get shadow banned. It's not about what the dogma is, which is why everybody thinks the site is biased against them. They see reasonable people they agree with getting shadow banned, and yet tons of buttheads don't because they are mostly congregating with people who agree with them and the feed then showing their posts to random people doesn't get them shadow banned because most random people aren't zealots who report non-abusive posts just because they disagree with them. The algorithm is just asinine.
jcranmer 2y ago
The beef people have with Twitter after the Musk takeover is that it has objectively gotten worse at upholding free speech ideals, even as its new owner claims that doing so is one of his main reasons for taking over the social media company. Pre-takeover, the company was generally considered to be the best of the major outfits in standing up to censorious dipshit politicians [1], routinely challenging government attempts to enforce censorship on social media. But since the takeover, there has seemed to be a rather partisan tinge to its attempts to challenge government censorship: the company has notably caved to authoritarian regimes (like Turkey) where it used to challenge it, although it does tend to remain resolute in opposing leftish censorship attempts. Furthermore, the company has gone after people for saying ugly truths about the company [2], going so far as to encourage certain right-wing governors to investigate those people for criminal actions. The patently obvious mismatch between the free speech rhetoric and the censorious actions is the key thing here, not merely the (perceived) odiousness of the opinions on display. [1] Do note that being censorious dipshits is a thoroughly bipartisan activity. [2] Like, they literally admit that what was said is true in their own legal complaint, which just torpedoes everything from day one, without the respondent having to say anything!
- AnthonyMouse 2y ago
  What we really need here is some anti-censorship technology that makes it so an authoritarian regime that tries to block its political opponents, fails. Make the ultimatum "block these accounts or we block the whole site" toothless. Have every major site using it by default so you're not just blocking Twitter but also Facebook and YouTube and Office365 and Wikipedia, and it acts as a generic VPN that allows anyone anywhere to access anything else their country tries to censor. In theory "just use a VPN" already does this, but it should be built into the browser so it happens automatically and unsophisticated users don't have to do anything to make it happen.
- EdwardDiego 2y ago
  Also, the classic "cisgender is hate speech" thing Musk introduced is very far from free speech.
EdwardDiego 2y ago
What's wrong with respecting the commenter's right to boycott Twitter?
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
rsynnott 2y ago
One can acknowledge that they are legally permitted to say whatever deranged crap they like, without necessarily having to walk amongst them. You can, in general, in democratic countries, say more or less what you like (some exclusions apply). However, you can’t generally compel others to listen to it.