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Free speech in the UK is under massive threat. But no one really cares. Much like the US reaction to the NSA thing. People think it wont have and effect on them
by alan_cx 13y ago
Free speech in the UK is under massive threat. But no one really cares. Much like the US reaction to the NSA thing. People think it wont have and effect on them, so they just ignore it. People who do care about free speech, and privacy, are subtly marginalized as radicals, which is presented as being a step or two away from being a terrorist or pervert.
- scholia 13y agoFree speech does not include the right to threaten rape or violence, or to harass women. That is the case both online an offline. Try saying something like this in a loud voice in a pub and see how you get on: https://twitter.com/femfreq/status/363160225873805312 https://twitter.com/femfreq/status/363160225873805312 Of course, free speech does allow a nutjob creationist to pervert science education in Texas, but that's another matter.
- betterunix 13y agoThe problem here is that any system that is used to fight threats of rape or violence will inevitably be used to silence political dissent, criticisms of corporations, etc. The existence of trolls is the price of free speech on the Internet.
- scholia 13y agoAnd the evidence for that is... where exactly? There's plenty of criticism of corporations and governments, as long as you're not threatening them with violence. Criticism is silenced by other laws, such as libel. Threats to rape women have nothing to do with it.
- makomk 13y agoDefine "harassing", and "women" too for that matter. One of the louder and more influential friends of the woman behind the successful Twitter abuse reporting petition is a particularly charming radical feminist called Cathy Brennan. Brennan believes that trans women are really men attacking women's rights by masquerading as women, and deals with this by systematically outing and doxxing them - we're taking names, photos, addresses, jobs in some cases. She's been known to call the FBI on them and falsely label them as pedophiles (because all trans women are pedophiles in her eyes). She doesn't consider this harassment. She does, however, consider anyone who objects to her or anyone else doing this - no matter how politely - to be a form of harassment. In addition, she has an organised group of allies with the same views who she gets to dogpile site owners, often successfully. (She's certainly managed to get Wordpress.com blogs reinstated that spectacularly violate the ToS and common decency reinstated, in one case by appealing to Matt Mullenweg directly.) Naturally, she entirely supports the new Twitter abuse reporting functionality.
- scholia 13y agoThe abuse of women on Twitter is vicious and very common. Much of it is also illegal. There's no excuse for ignoring it, and the abuse button looks like the best available answer for roughly 400 million users. I'll be interested if you can come up with a better one. Complaining about edge-cases has its place but doesn't actually provide an answer.
- tzs 13y agoSo? I don't see how anything useful can be concluded from what you say without invoking one or more fallacies.
- andrewcooke 13y ago...and much like the uk reaction to the gchq thing, as far as i can see.