5 ms·

It can simultaneously be legal/allowable for them to ban speech, and yet also the case that we should criticize them for doing so. The first amendment only rest

It can simultaneously be legal/allowable for them to ban speech, and yet also the case that we should criticize them for doing so. The first amendment only restricts the government, but a culture of free speech will also criticize private entities for taking censorious actions. And a culture of free speech is necessary to make sure that the first amendment is not eventually eroded away to nothing.

lkey 1y ago
Or it might be the case that that 'culture' is eroding the thing it claims to be protecting. https://www.popehat.com/p/how-free-speech-culture-is-killing-free-speech-part-one https://www.popehat.com/p/how-free-speech-culture-is-killing...
- AfterHIA 1y ago
  This. Even if we have concrete protections in our society it takes a society of people committed to a common democratic cause and common functional prosperity that prevents there from being abuses of the right to speak and so on (..) This isn't complicated and this wasn't always controversial. I've already described above that even in this thread there's a sentiment which is that, "as long as somebody has gained coercive power legitimately then it is within their right to coerce." I see terms thrown around like, "if somebody owns" or, "if somebody is the CEO of..." which speaks to the growing air of illiberality an liberal autocranarianism which is a direct result of the neoliberal assault founding and funding thousands of Cato Institutes, Adam Smith Societies, and Heritage Foundations since the neoliberal turn in the late 1960's. We've legitimized domination ethics as an extension of the hungry rights of pseudotyrants and the expense of people in general. I wonder what people in general might one day do about this? I wonder if there's a historical precedent for what happens when people face oppression and the degradation of common cultural projects? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Revolution#October_Revolution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Revolution#October_Rev... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reign_of_Terror https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reign_of_Terror
plantwallshoe 1y ago
Isn’t promoting/removing opinions you care about a form of speech? If I choose to put a Kamala sign in my yard and not a Trump sign, that’s an expression of free speech. If the marketing company I own decides to not work for causes I don’t personally support, that’s free speech. If the video hosting platform I’m CEO of doesn’t host unfounded anti-vax content because I think it’s a bad business move, is that not also free speech?
- lmz 1y ago
  Agreed. If I have a TV network and think these anti-government hosts on my network are bad for business, that is also freedom of speech.
  - rubyfan 1y ago
    Maybe. If it is independent of government coercion.
    - Jensson 1y ago
      But Youtube did this after government coercion, so what is the difference?
      - alphabettsy 1y ago
        I think you should look up the definition of coercion.
        Jensson 1y ago
        Have you seen the emails the Biden Administration sent to Youtube? Here is a quote verbatim that they sent to Youtube: > we want to be sure that you have a handle on vaccine hesitancy generally and are working toward making the problem better. This is a concern that is shared at the highest (and I mean highest) levels of the White House Saying you want to make sure they will censor these videos is a threat, and then they said that Biden was behind this to add legitimacy to the threat. If it was just a friendly greeting why would they threaten youtube with Bidens name? If youtube did this willingly there would be no need to write such a threatening message saying they want to make sure Youtube censors these. You can read the whole report here if you wanna see more: https://judiciary.house.gov/sites/evo-subsites/republicans-judiciary.house.gov/files/evo-media-document/Censorship-Industrial-Complex-WH-Report_Appendix.pdf https://judiciary.house.gov/sites/evo-subsites/republicans-j... And if you don't see that as a threat, imagine someone in the trump administration sent that, do you still think its not a threat? Of course its a threat, it makes no sense to write that way otherwise, you would just say you wanted to hear how it goes not say you wanna make sure they do this specific thing and threaten them with the presidents powers.
asadotzler 1y ago
Will you criticize my book publishing company for not publishing and distributing your smut short story?
- user34283 1y ago
  No, but I will criticize Apple and Google for banning smut apps. If those two private companies would host all legal content, this could be a thriving market. Somehow big tech and payment processors get to censor most software.
- AfterHIA 1y ago
  Perhaps and if you have some kind of monopoly than definitely. Things beings, "yours" isn't some fundamental part of the human condition. CEOs serve their employees and shareholders and the ethics of the business space they operate in. Owners are ethically obligated to engage in fair business practices. I'm sick up to my neck of this sentiment that if John Galt is holding a gun he necessarily has the right to shoot it at somebody. Modern democracies aren't founded on realist ethics or absolute commitments to economic liberalism as totalizing-- they're founded on a ethical balance between the real needs of people, the real potential for capital expansion, and superior sentiments about the possibilities of the human condition. As a kid that supported Ron Paul's bid for the Republican nomination as a 16-year-old I can't help but feel that libertarian politics has ruined generations of people by getting them to accept autocracy as, "one ethical outcome to a free society." It isn't. The irony in me posting this will be lost on most: https://www.uschamber.com/ https://www.uschamber.com/
SantalBlush 1y ago
Are you in favor of HN allowing advertisements, shilling, or spam in these threads? Because those things are free speech. Would you like to allow comments about generic ED pills? I simply don't believe people who say they want to support a culture of free speech on a media or social media site. They haven't really thought about what that means.
- AfterHIA 1y ago
  Without being crude I think they stopped, "thinking about that means" in any positive sense a long time ago. Cultures of discourse and criticism are never good for the powerful. The goal is to create a culture when anyone can say anything but with no meaningful social consequences negative or positive. I can call Trump a pedophile all day on my computer interface and maybe somebody else will see it but the Google and Meta machine just treat it as another engagement dollar. These dollars are now literally flowing to the White House in the form of investment commitments by acting Tech Czar Zuckerberg. While I'm with my dudes in computer space-- it all starts with the passing of the Mansfield Amendment. You want to know why tech sucks and we haven't made any foundational breakthroughs for decades? The privatization of technology innovation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pirates_of_Silicon_Valley https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pirates_of_Silicon_Valley https://www.nsf.gov/about/history/narrative#chapter-iv-tumultuous-times-1968-1976-dd8 https://www.nsf.gov/about/history/narrative#chapter-iv-tumul...
AfterHIA 1y ago
Bingo. This is Adam Smith's whole point in the second half of, "Wealth Of Nations" that nobody bothers to read in lieu of the sentiments of the Cato Institute and the various Adam Smith societies. Nations produce, "kinds of people" that based on their experience of a common liberty and prosperity will err against tyranny. Economics and autocracy in our country is destroying our culture of, "talk and liberality." Discourse has become, "let's take turns attacking each other and each other's positions." The American civilization has deep flaws but has historically worked toward, "doing what was right." https://www.adamsmithworks.org/documents/book-v-of-the-revenue-of-the-sovereign-or-commonwealth https://www.adamsmithworks.org/documents/book-v-of-the-reven...

lkey 1y ago

Or it might be the case that that 'culture' is eroding the thing it claims to be protecting. https://www.popehat.com/p/how-free-speech-culture-is-killing-free-speech-part-one https://www.popehat.com/p/how-free-speech-culture-is-killing...

AfterHIA 1y ago
This. Even if we have concrete protections in our society it takes a society of people committed to a common democratic cause and common functional prosperity that prevents there from being abuses of the right to speak and so on (..) This isn't complicated and this wasn't always controversial. I've already described above that even in this thread there's a sentiment which is that, "as long as somebody has gained coercive power legitimately then it is within their right to coerce." I see terms thrown around like, "if somebody owns" or, "if somebody is the CEO of..." which speaks to the growing air of illiberality an liberal autocranarianism which is a direct result of the neoliberal assault founding and funding thousands of Cato Institutes, Adam Smith Societies, and Heritage Foundations since the neoliberal turn in the late 1960's. We've legitimized domination ethics as an extension of the hungry rights of pseudotyrants and the expense of people in general. I wonder what people in general might one day do about this? I wonder if there's a historical precedent for what happens when people face oppression and the degradation of common cultural projects? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Revolution#October_Revolution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Revolution#October_Rev... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reign_of_Terror https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reign_of_Terror

plantwallshoe 1y ago

Isn’t promoting/removing opinions you care about a form of speech? If I choose to put a Kamala sign in my yard and not a Trump sign, that’s an expression of free speech. If the marketing company I own decides to not work for causes I don’t personally support, that’s free speech. If the video hosting platform I’m CEO of doesn’t host unfounded anti-vax content because I think it’s a bad business move, is that not also free speech?

lmz 1y ago
Agreed. If I have a TV network and think these anti-government hosts on my network are bad for business, that is also freedom of speech.
- rubyfan 1y ago
  Maybe. If it is independent of government coercion.
  - Jensson 1y ago
    But Youtube did this after government coercion, so what is the difference?
    - alphabettsy 1y ago
      I think you should look up the definition of coercion.
      - Jensson 1y ago
        Have you seen the emails the Biden Administration sent to Youtube? Here is a quote verbatim that they sent to Youtube: > we want to be sure that you have a handle on vaccine hesitancy generally and are working toward making the problem better. This is a concern that is shared at the highest (and I mean highest) levels of the White House Saying you want to make sure they will censor these videos is a threat, and then they said that Biden was behind this to add legitimacy to the threat. If it was just a friendly greeting why would they threaten youtube with Bidens name? If youtube did this willingly there would be no need to write such a threatening message saying they want to make sure Youtube censors these. You can read the whole report here if you wanna see more: https://judiciary.house.gov/sites/evo-subsites/republicans-judiciary.house.gov/files/evo-media-document/Censorship-Industrial-Complex-WH-Report_Appendix.pdf https://judiciary.house.gov/sites/evo-subsites/republicans-j... And if you don't see that as a threat, imagine someone in the trump administration sent that, do you still think its not a threat? Of course its a threat, it makes no sense to write that way otherwise, you would just say you wanted to hear how it goes not say you wanna make sure they do this specific thing and threaten them with the presidents powers.

asadotzler 1y ago

Will you criticize my book publishing company for not publishing and distributing your smut short story?

user34283 1y ago
No, but I will criticize Apple and Google for banning smut apps. If those two private companies would host all legal content, this could be a thriving market. Somehow big tech and payment processors get to censor most software.
AfterHIA 1y ago
Perhaps and if you have some kind of monopoly than definitely. Things beings, "yours" isn't some fundamental part of the human condition. CEOs serve their employees and shareholders and the ethics of the business space they operate in. Owners are ethically obligated to engage in fair business practices. I'm sick up to my neck of this sentiment that if John Galt is holding a gun he necessarily has the right to shoot it at somebody. Modern democracies aren't founded on realist ethics or absolute commitments to economic liberalism as totalizing-- they're founded on a ethical balance between the real needs of people, the real potential for capital expansion, and superior sentiments about the possibilities of the human condition. As a kid that supported Ron Paul's bid for the Republican nomination as a 16-year-old I can't help but feel that libertarian politics has ruined generations of people by getting them to accept autocracy as, "one ethical outcome to a free society." It isn't. The irony in me posting this will be lost on most: https://www.uschamber.com/ https://www.uschamber.com/

SantalBlush 1y ago

Are you in favor of HN allowing advertisements, shilling, or spam in these threads? Because those things are free speech. Would you like to allow comments about generic ED pills? I simply don't believe people who say they want to support a culture of free speech on a media or social media site. They haven't really thought about what that means.

AfterHIA 1y ago
Without being crude I think they stopped, "thinking about that means" in any positive sense a long time ago. Cultures of discourse and criticism are never good for the powerful. The goal is to create a culture when anyone can say anything but with no meaningful social consequences negative or positive. I can call Trump a pedophile all day on my computer interface and maybe somebody else will see it but the Google and Meta machine just treat it as another engagement dollar. These dollars are now literally flowing to the White House in the form of investment commitments by acting Tech Czar Zuckerberg. While I'm with my dudes in computer space-- it all starts with the passing of the Mansfield Amendment. You want to know why tech sucks and we haven't made any foundational breakthroughs for decades? The privatization of technology innovation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pirates_of_Silicon_Valley https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pirates_of_Silicon_Valley https://www.nsf.gov/about/history/narrative#chapter-iv-tumultuous-times-1968-1976-dd8 https://www.nsf.gov/about/history/narrative#chapter-iv-tumul...

AfterHIA 1y ago

Bingo. This is Adam Smith's whole point in the second half of, "Wealth Of Nations" that nobody bothers to read in lieu of the sentiments of the Cato Institute and the various Adam Smith societies. Nations produce, "kinds of people" that based on their experience of a common liberty and prosperity will err against tyranny. Economics and autocracy in our country is destroying our culture of, "talk and liberality." Discourse has become, "let's take turns attacking each other and each other's positions." The American civilization has deep flaws but has historically worked toward, "doing what was right." https://www.adamsmithworks.org/documents/book-v-of-the-revenue-of-the-sovereign-or-commonwealth https://www.adamsmithworks.org/documents/book-v-of-the-reven...