4 ms·

Free speech is a good system that allows humans to flourish, and is basically only around in the best places with modern prosperity. It is the fascist nations t

Free speech is a good system that allows humans to flourish, and is basically only around in the best places with modern prosperity. It is the fascist nations that enact speech restrictions. Go read 1984. Go learn about how wrongthink influences daily life in soviet era. The right that you are even allowed to discuss this topic has been paid for in blood over centuries. Be greatful. Dont undo it.

energy123 2y ago
Every liberal democracy has speech restrictions, including the US. It is illegal to defame someone in the US. Hate speech is illegal in much of Europe and the Anglosphere. None of this has been a slippery slope to autocracy because that's not how fascists or communists peel back rights. They peel back rights by first undermining democracy and the separation of powers. Then once they've done that, and the Constitution becomes just another piece of paper, the speech rights get removed afterwards. That's the causal directionality. Anyway, I'm not advocating for more government speech restrictions, so this is a sidetrack. I value the US first amendment as is. But I want private social media companies to do basic moderation. Survival is paramount, and private social media companies allowing rampant race based hatred is doing more harm than good to that objective.
- wegfawefgawefg 2y ago
  I never said anything about a slippery slope. Either way I do think that you are more free to speak in the woods 200 years ago, than now jumping from one corporate kindergarten to another. The problem with letting companies decide their own free speech subrules is that I am always inside a company kindergarten. At work, online, in public. Every website. How would I avoid them? Hide in my room with my phone in airplane mode after work? As it remains the only place that we can talk freely is when we are in hiding from perpetual corporate surveillance. Do you really think it was like this when the country was founded? I do not trust any entity to regulate what is allowed to be said or not said at all, be that the government, or bussinesses.
  - energy123 2y ago
    Yes, it was always like this until only a few years ago. The medium of communication was print and then radio and television. The largest private entities in these mediums did not have an allocated hour or page for hate preachers to proselytize to their large audience. The largest private distribution channels of print media did not allow any such material, either. For the most part, they moderated their private platforms by banning those content creators. Well, large private Rwandan radio channels didn't self-moderate, but that's an exception that proves how important what I'm talking about is. You're conflating the medium (the internet, print media) for the private actors within the medium (Tik Tok, NYT, bookstores). Hate preachers will still be free to create their own little hate websites, newspapers and radio channels as they always have. None of this is a violation of free speech, and to say otherwise is a modern politicized bastardization of the American sociolegal concept of free speech. The concept was never about an implied right to unlimited discoverability and for private shop owners to carry a hateful newspaper or TikTok to carry a hateful channel. Private storefronts have, for the most part, rightfully rejected to assist in the distribution of harmful material. This worked as a nice balance that attenuated the worst aspects of speech (e.g. the hateful content that incited the Rwandan genocide) via self-regulation, which allowed the government to stay far away.
    - wegfawefgawefg 2y ago
      I think it is about free speech. I think a man should be allowed to say what he thinks. Thats it. No exceptions.

energy123 2y ago

Every liberal democracy has speech restrictions, including the US. It is illegal to defame someone in the US. Hate speech is illegal in much of Europe and the Anglosphere. None of this has been a slippery slope to autocracy because that's not how fascists or communists peel back rights. They peel back rights by first undermining democracy and the separation of powers. Then once they've done that, and the Constitution becomes just another piece of paper, the speech rights get removed afterwards. That's the causal directionality. Anyway, I'm not advocating for more government speech restrictions, so this is a sidetrack. I value the US first amendment as is. But I want private social media companies to do basic moderation. Survival is paramount, and private social media companies allowing rampant race based hatred is doing more harm than good to that objective.

wegfawefgawefg 2y ago
I never said anything about a slippery slope. Either way I do think that you are more free to speak in the woods 200 years ago, than now jumping from one corporate kindergarten to another. The problem with letting companies decide their own free speech subrules is that I am always inside a company kindergarten. At work, online, in public. Every website. How would I avoid them? Hide in my room with my phone in airplane mode after work? As it remains the only place that we can talk freely is when we are in hiding from perpetual corporate surveillance. Do you really think it was like this when the country was founded? I do not trust any entity to regulate what is allowed to be said or not said at all, be that the government, or bussinesses.
- energy123 2y ago
  Yes, it was always like this until only a few years ago. The medium of communication was print and then radio and television. The largest private entities in these mediums did not have an allocated hour or page for hate preachers to proselytize to their large audience. The largest private distribution channels of print media did not allow any such material, either. For the most part, they moderated their private platforms by banning those content creators. Well, large private Rwandan radio channels didn't self-moderate, but that's an exception that proves how important what I'm talking about is. You're conflating the medium (the internet, print media) for the private actors within the medium (Tik Tok, NYT, bookstores). Hate preachers will still be free to create their own little hate websites, newspapers and radio channels as they always have. None of this is a violation of free speech, and to say otherwise is a modern politicized bastardization of the American sociolegal concept of free speech. The concept was never about an implied right to unlimited discoverability and for private shop owners to carry a hateful newspaper or TikTok to carry a hateful channel. Private storefronts have, for the most part, rightfully rejected to assist in the distribution of harmful material. This worked as a nice balance that attenuated the worst aspects of speech (e.g. the hateful content that incited the Rwandan genocide) via self-regulation, which allowed the government to stay far away.
  - wegfawefgawefg 2y ago
    I think it is about free speech. I think a man should be allowed to say what he thinks. Thats it. No exceptions.