Who decides what is hateful and worthy of removal? How is it not censorship? This is such a dumb article lol
You don’t have to be a free speech advocate. It’s fine if you want censorship, just quit changing definitions to make yourself sound less authoritarian.
There’s a fundamental Americanized understanding of censorship as de facto BAD. So in order to justify doing what is very obviously a form of censorship, we don’t establish a justifiable and transparent process for censoring content. We just redefine the thing we’re doing as “Not Censorship”.
At the same time, with so much of social media in the hands of a tiny minority of mega-advertisers, the debate is pointless. We don’t get to decide what is or is not censured. The advertisers do. Smears against ethnic groups or religious movements or people of a particular gender or persuasion are only prohibited when they interfere with the distribution of marketing materials.
Now that advertisers have sufficiently A/B tested their marketing material, there’s no reason to explicitly prohibit bigoted content because you can simply cloister particular communities into atomized walled gardens of advertising media.
I can sell Bud Light Fuck The Trans cans to the evangelical chuds, I can sell Bud Light Israel Did Nothing Wrong to Zionists, and I can sell Bud Light Communism Will Win to the Tankies. Everyone can have their own boutique Bud Light experience and sales of piss beer can keep going up forever.
Some might argue that calling what happens in Gaza a genocide might be hate speach against Israel, and it should be censored. So who decides what is “hate” and what is not?
Some might argue that calling what happens in Gaza a genocide might be hate speach against Israel
Paxton Wins Major Case Defending Texas’s Anti-Boycott-of-Israel Law
“Texas’s anti-boycott law is both constitutional and, unfortunately, increasingly necessary as the radical left becomes increasingly hostile and antagonistic toward Israel,” said Attorney General Paxton. “Though some wish to get rid of the law and see Israel fail, the State of Texas will remain firm in our commitment to stand with Israel by refusing to do business with companies that boycott the only democratic nation in the Middle East. In this case, I’m pleased to see the court recognize that the plaintiff lacked any standing to bring this challenge. Thus, our important law remains in effect, and I will continue to defend it relentlessly.”
In your example, there is clear, observable evidence of genocide occurring. They are killing civilians and demolishing critical civilian infrastructure. So, saying Israel is committing genocide has a certain amount of truth/accuracy in it, and the intent isn’t to smear Israel, it’s to point out what they are actively doing, while the world is receiving constant updates. In other words, there is objective evidence behind the claims.
Hate speech is the opposite. It has no objective evidence behind it, and the intent is to make specific people/groups look a certain way. We can typically infer the intent of hate speech by the words they choose to use, and the way they frame their “argument”. We employ critical thinking to do this. This process can also be peer reviewed for further accuracy.
In your example, there is clear, observable evidence of genocide occurring.
I’ve seen many denying the evidence which seems so obvious to you. Even my government is denying it.
Who decides about objectivity?
Who decides about objectivity?
In principle, you don’t need anyone to decide. The facts speak for themselves.
In practice, people get the overwhelming majority of their information third-hand. So the people who decide on objective reality are the people who manage the media infrastructure that provides information of the outside world to their audience.
As audiences become more fractured and information streams more selective (particularly in political media), the different viewpoints provided by various news outlets and propaganda firms can create the illusion of multiple competing objective realities.
But lying and denial and selective reporting don’t change reality. Eventually, the reporting begins to produce contradictions - images and statements that don’t line up with one another, because they are so busy trying to reframe a momentary narrative or shape a shifting popular opinion. That dissonance is a big warning sign of an illusion at play.
We have footage of them bombing schools, hospitals, shooting up aid convoys… What is there to deny?..
Schools, hospitals, and aid convoys that are hijacked and used by Hamas for conducting military operations, which makes them valid military targets under international law.
Schools, hospitals, and aid convoys that are hijacked and used by Hamas
The “human shields” rhetoric is traditionally used as a reason why you can’t target a militant, not a reason why you can kill a civilian.
Israel has inverted the narrative, both by asserting that a dozen dead Palestinians are justified if one Hamas militant is killed, and by asserting that anyone in proximity to a Hamas militant is a collaborator.
The end result is a free-fire zone, wherein nobody an Israeli bomb or hit squad targets is exempt from the status of “military target”. This is a legal claim that Israel makes independent of international legal courts, and has resulted in the Israeli government being repeatedly sanctioned and threatened with prosecution by those same courts.
So no, they are not
valid military targets under international law
Just the contrary. The IDF is implicated in war crimes by engaging in these rampant and lawless slaughters.
Except, in all cases, there were a lot of dead doctors, teachers, and children. The UN investigated each instance and found war crimes. The aid convoys were with registered international aid organizations and, upon investigation, they were found to be legitimate, had no weapons, we have footage of the attacks happening, they were not entering legitimate Israeli territory, and Israel has not shared any evidence of hamas operating out of these locations or via aid convoys.
If I take the time to back this up with sources, would you be receptive to the information? Don’t want to waste my time if you’re not willing to assess evidence that disproves your currently held beliefs.
Those arguing objective facts when the point is clear tend to argue from a position of bad faith, and should be ignored. Hence the critical thinking.
Look at what those who are denying genocide in this example have to gain from such a claim. If it’s much, those individuals have a vested interest in denying the truth and as such, should no longer be allowed a seat at the table.
There is plenty across history that defines a genocide. Leaders arguing there aren’t exact parallels this time around, makes them despot. Complicit is too kind a word.
Well, it is censorship.
People just wake up to a realization that some censorship should exist, and it makes many uncomfortable.
Other than that, don’t be tolerant of the intolerant, and you’ll be fine.
It IS censorship and they should stop saying it isn’t, but they should clearly say “we will censor X because Y” and be transparent about it. Censorship where the majority of population agrees with it is still censorship, but approved and accepted for the greater good.
Now, the question is what does “hateful” mean? And where does “hateful” start and begin? Is saying “I hate my neighbour” and “I hate Nazis” the same? Is “I hate gay people” and “I hate Manchester United” the same? Why not focus on violence instead of hate. We should have the freedom to hate (hear me out…) but in the end it is a feeling and a preference and no censorship will change that. What should be prevented at all costs however, is violent content. People can love or hate whoever, but they shouldn’t be allowed to call upon any type of violence towards them.
Someone hating someone doesn’t change a thing, but someone calling for attacks against someone - this is a whole new dimension and deserves total censorship.
Censorship isn’t policing people’s feelings, you’re allowed to hate. Why should you be allowed to express hate, and make those people feel unwelcome?
Your questions are also not as morally grey as you think. Manchester United isn’t hated for a core part of their being, they’re not victims of violence, they’re not a class of person who has been enslaved or erased or mistreated throughout their existence.
Individual freedom needs to take a back seat to collective freedom, and the freedom to self expression, identity, and well being for all. Freedom to oppress isn’t freedom. Nobody is free unless we’re all free.
It’s simple. If your rights infringe on my rights, and there is no way for me to avoid the “you”, whatever it may be at the moment, it should be regulated.
Go ahead and hate gays, but on a multicultural/multi-national platform that over a 3rd of the population use, you shouldn’t be allowed to project that because it makes gay people feel unsafe. It infringes on their humanity.
Just because a group is immune to the intricacies of this, re: straight and white, shouldn’t be a license for them to say and do whatever they want.
Try a group of gay people against straights, see how long that group lasts. Why the double meaning
I mean it is, but it’s also not a bad thing in moderation (heh)
I think the difference is between protecting wealth and power vs protecting basic human rights.
It’s censorship one way or the other. The paradox of tolerance comes into play. We can’t ignore hate, it needs to be visible so people can be on guard, but we also can’t let it take over by letting it run roughshod and unchecked. Those in charge of media and social media are in the first camp - protecting wealth and power, letting hate run rampant. It drives profits and engagement, the extremes of politics they support give them control.
Advertising is hateful content. Ban the entire marketing industry now please.
The majority of advertising we see in the US should be banned for sure. It is just thinly veiled psychological fuckery designed to manipulate us. Not cool.
Agreed. Let everyone be free to decide. I don’t want something shoved to my face 24x7, its inorganic and harmful.
I mean it is censorship. But not all censorship is bad.
There will be no protection under the social contract for those who wish to violate it.
Suddenly they care. One dead CEao and a bunch of whiny scared Billionaires is enough to stop 10 years of hateful content. Interesting lesson right there. Censorship is only good if it protects the rich.
Who decides when the content is “hateful”? The perpetrators of genocide characterize themselves as marginalized and their victims as a force seeking to eradicate them. That is the problem with censorship. Those are the people who end up with the control of speech. You end up with an Orwellian inversion of concepts like hateful speech for the exact reason that they can be weaponized for profit and power.
You show me which fascist government is going to censor the fascists living under it. It’s a paradox. They will not. They will censor the resistance.
We’ve come to decide ‘hate content’ on ideological basis that the question of ‘who decides’ arises. If people could be more realistic than idealistic, that would’ve never been the issue. In this situation, what’s in your head becomes more important than what you really need because something didn’t go your way.
If in a work of fiction I have a villain call my hero the n-word to demonstrate that the villain is an unapologetic racist, and I am told that I can’t have that because the word is bad in and of itself and that racist behavior cannot be tolerated even in fiction…
That is censorship, even if your goals are noble they are also ignorant, as showing disgusting things in fiction is often done in order to condemn similar behavior in real life.
If you call a black person the n-word in real life, and he stomps your ass.
This isn’t censorship, this is comedy.
If one goes onto an online community and calls its members radical insults in an unfriendly clearly non-joking hostile manner. Then the guilty party should be removed from that community,
Censorship or not, tolerance is a social contract, and those who want to undo this system must be stopped by any means possible. Content moderation is actually the compromise.
Tolerance is tolerance and it can break any time. You just keep tolerating until you can’t anymore, as simple as that. Its artificial.
Just to put some perspective over here:
Pretty much the exact same thing in pretty much the exact words is being said on the other (right wing) side of things. Its just the things being tolerated are different
I honestly think that the bigger issue here isn’t so much tolerance but certain parties that keep pointing out relatively small things to the common people (mostly on the right side of the political spectrum) and go “ooohhg my God can you believe these evil fuckers and they will do that to children too and won’t anyone think of the children”. Basically I’m talking trump, musk, Fox news, that sort of shit.
I’ve long held the believe that Trump did untold damage and harm to millions, but the biggest harm he has done is the division he’s sown. There has always been a rather steep divide in the US, but that divide has grown into a fucking ocean between the two sides.
I think most people in the US, when receiving the actual proper facts, would really not think and feel that different. Nobody would rage against universal healthcare, why would they? You only do that when you’re misinformed.
Not trying to excuse anyone, not trying to say that most trump supporters aren’t insufferable assholes, but the vast majority of them wouldn’t be as bad had they have access to actual news sources, had they not been constantly lied to.
Now with what you said, please understand that there are loads of highly armed militia groups out there in the US that would love to go into detail of that “any means necessary”. Were this to happen, you’re basically talking civil war. once that happens, everyone loses, you will too.
I think that the only way to repair this divide is to keep building bridges, keep talking, keep listening, because once it gets too far, then that’s it. One only has to look at Yugoslavia as an example of what happens when neighbor starts massacring neighbors. There is no winning for anyone.
The biggest issue is, those who divide us make those people untrusting of said bridges.
We don’t have a social contract. It’s everyone for themselves.
That depends on who’s doing the moderation. If it’s a government entity, that’s censorship, and the only time I’m willing to accept it is if it’s somehow actively harmful (i.e. terrorist plots and whatnot). If it’s merely disgusting, that’s for private entities to work out, and private entities absolutely have the right to moderate content they host however they choose.
Why is a private entity significantly different from a government entity? If a coalition of private entities (say, facebook, twitter, youtube, … ) controls most of the commons, they have the power to dictate everything beyond the fringes. We can already see this kind of collusion in mass media to the extent that it’s labeled a propaganda model. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda_model
I just don’t think the private/gov dichotomy is enough to decide when censorship and moderation is valid.
It’s because of the power imbalance. If a private entity decides LGBT content is inappropriate for kids, you can find something on the fringe because someone will fill that gap. If a government makes the same decision, they can prosecute any service that doesn’t follow the law, which chills smaller services from offering it.
On the flipside, if a large tech company does it, it affects nearly everyone on the planet, whereas if a government does it, it should only impact people in that country. However, with larger countries, impacts often bleed into other countries (e.g. I see EU cookie banners in the US).
Likewise, it’s less likely for a government to rescind a bad law, whereas a bad policy can be easily reversed if it hurts profits.
The government is supposed to be representing voters’ best interests and have a monopoly on force to enforce rules. We can’t trust anyone to decide for us what speech we can listen to. A government should have no say on restricting speech (sadly, even if that speech does cause harm to people in our LGBT family).
A business should not have power comparable to a government. You probably have to interact with the government to some degree, you shouldn’t have to interact with a specific business at all.
These points both make sense given ideal conditions. People and businesses should have liberty over themselves, with the government serving as a neutral foundation representing the interest of voters.
Unfortunately, these ideal conditions don’t exist. The government isn’t neutral, but that’s not because of themselves or a democratic decision, but because businesses have more power to influence politics than you and me. Look at the major shareholders of mass media and social media, look at fundraisers for political parties, look at the laws made to bias the system. The government is evidently not a neutral foundation or a representative of the common people, but a dictatorship of the owning class (I’m using the term dictatorship not to imply one person ruling, but rather, that business owners as a class dictate the actions of politicians and therefore the government). And while it’s easy to consider this a crony capitalism or corporatocracy, it’s ultimately just capitalism itself taking its logical course, as business owners generally have a common class interest and the government cannot work without the complicity of business owners. We see this consistently in capitalist states, all the way back to the first ones. It’s not a fluke, it’s the power of capital.
We also see the trend of monopolization emerge - more money makes more money, more resources makes more resources, so small businesses are generally muscled out or incorporated into larger companies unless the government can force them to stop. So while you technically don’t have to interact with a specific business at all, there are many industries where you are effectively forced to interact with a small collection of the most powerful businesses or even a duopoly, even more so if you don’t have enough money to be picky.
So, while I agree, the government is supposed to be representing voters’ best interests, and business should not have power comparable to governance, they don’t represent us and businesses do govern, and history shows this won’t be changed through the electoral system they control. It has only changed when the worker class, as opposed to the businesses, has become the class directing the government.
the only time I’m willing to accept it is if it’s somehow actively harmful
Oh, like the dissemination of propaganda originating from the troll farms of hostile powers? Good idea.
Harmful meaning things like harassment (defined as continued and targeted use of speech intended to harass an individual) or credible threats of violence (i.e. a threat to kill a specific individual, attack an area, etc).
Harmful doesn’t mean “ideas I don’t like.”
Delete the data on my device and let me in control of the sliders and ban words. Make the defaults reasonnable to stop hate. This would not be censorship anymore, just deamplification and no one is a martyr now.
Simple as. Why censor when you can just let the users have the power to see what they want to see? In voyager I have all of the annoying headline keywords filtered. Makes browsing the fediverse much more pleasant.
The reason to say not but will not admit. This strips the owner class for the power to shape discourse and control the means of communication. This dynamic also exists on open source communication platforms such as lemmy and mastodon.
Imagine if we could simply subscribe to the content filters of fellow users. If I could just click your username, see you filter keyword list and click to add to mine the ones I like or subscribe to your named filters and their future changes.
Well it depends on the definition of censor.
If you define censor as, “to suppress or delete as objectionable” (Webster) then it fits just fine.
A tolerant society can not tolerate intolerance.
And society != government.
The law should tolerate intolerance, outside of credible threats of violance/restrictions of others’ rights. However, society shouldn’t tolerate intolerance, meaning we should shut down intolerance in all privately controlled spaces, and confront intolerance in all public spaces.
This is extremely wrong. The government is most definitely our society. Trying to pretend the government is not made up of us is ridiculous and reeks of othering.
I have read several of your posts and they all rely on government bad private sector good methodology. It reminds me of good old fashioned anti-government propaganda pushed by corpo bootlickers.
The government is and always will be a tool of society. I can certainly appreciate your apprehension with our current government in the US. I also appreciate your diligence in defining the difference between public and private spaces.
Trying to pretend the government is not made up of us is ridiculous and reeks of othering.
Oh, the incoming US government is made up of us? There is no “us” that includes both me and those thieving, murderous, lying pieces of shit.
And as the man said, if my thought-dreams could be seen, they’d probably put my head in a guillotine.
Yup it is, you must understand the incoming administration is just a fraction of the actual government.
I totally agree with you that Aotus and his handlers along with a lot of our representatives are pieces of shit. We definitely need to vote them out. Hopefully we will still be able to when it is all said and done.
Really though we need some serious reforms to restore our confidence.
The government is most definitely our society.
That’s absolutely not true. To use a sports analogy (any sport), the government is the referees, and society is the culture around the game (cheers, rituals, etc). If nobody shows up to the stadium, the refs have nothing to referee, yet society carries on.
We try to set up rules that match the values we hold (i.e. no dangerous tackles), but if we try to rig the game in our favor, the other team will use those same rules against us. If we give the referees too much leeway in interpreting the rules, we open ourselves up to bribery and unfair game calling.
As you rightly said, government is a tool of society, but it’s also a dangerous tool. The same tool can guarantee equal protection under the law like the civil rights movement in the US, or it can guarantee unequal protection like in Nazi Germany. The difference comes down to what powers we let the government have.
First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.
You can throw “fascists” (general term for the right wing these days it seems) in there as well. Once you give the government power to regulate speech, it becomes very easy to abuse. If you can control the narrative, you can hold on to power.
they all rely on government bad private sector good methodology
While I do most closely align with libertarians than either major party (who are stereotypically pro-private sector), I don’t think this is a good summary. I think government is a dangerous tool and we should be very careful in using it to solve problems. However, I also think large corporations are also dangerous, and we should have tools to keep them in check. For example:
- rescind corporate protections for larger orgs - if a company is worth more than a certain amount, it no longer needs public protection and should be expected to carry insurance for any debts
- expose executives to criminal prosecution
- set strict limits on election interference, and get money out of elections
- I believe in NIT, a formulation of UBI that has less sticker shock, so people can walk way with confidence from bad employment situations
We absolutely need checks on both the private and public sectors, the first to prevent any one individual or group from having an outsized influence, and the second to prevent weaponization of the state’s monopoly on force. I believe government should be decentralized, but powerful in the limited roles it has.
I know people who have ran for office and been successful on the city/county level. They made a difference in our communities. The people in government are not any different than you or I.
On a local level there is not even a doubt that we have a lot of control. I have “lobbied” local, state level, and federal level and I can tell you we have less control over the federal side. This does not mean we have no control though.
We are literally the government. The government has the power to regulate speech and exercises it’s authority regularly. The judicial branch is well known for regulating free speech in the public sector. We have a lot of laws for things like broadcasting or radio in the private sector.
Unfortunately our government never really caught up with the Internet age quite yet. The regulations they have wrote heavily favor corporate interests. Concepts like Net Neutrality were politicized instead of embraced. We still lack basic privacy protections. We gave hundreds of billions of dollars to telecom to provide fiber throughout the country and they squandered it.
We are forced to use shitty private companies for communication. We have to go through third parties for all our banking needs. Meanwhile these companies lie, cheat, and decieves us. Truly a libertarian hellscape where private interests control everything.
The very reason you dislike the government is the very reason we are here today. Our government is so ineffective it has basically given into private interests. This is particularly noticeable in the Tech sector.
I think it is past time to write a new constitution that actually works for everyone. We need to shed the “for the rich by the rich” part of our government and basically grow up. Governing should be highly regulated and designed to resist corruption.
The people in government are not any different than you or I.
Yup, and I’ve thought of challenging my state rep because he always runs unopposed. I honestly don’t have time for the job, but my rep is such an idiot that maybe it’s worth risking the very remote chance that I’ll win. I doubt I’d get >20%, and that’s including all the protest and pity votes in my district.
Concepts like Net Neutrality were politicized instead of embraced.
It’s also not at all what it says on the tin.
Ideally, something like that wouldn’t be necessary at all because nobody owns the internet. Yet for some reason everyone wants to regulate it. If I pay for service, I should get the advertised speed, regardless of what I’m accessing. If someone like Netflix wants to host a cache at my ISP, go for it, but it should only be hit if my DNS resolves to that cache (and I control my DNS).
Yet ISPs, governments, and big tech companies all think they own it. Just back off.
Truly a libertarian hellscape where private interests control everything.
More like a nightmare for libertarians. Everywhere I look there’s cronyism, and that’s distinctly anti-libertarian. Banks get bailed out when they get caught with their hand in the cookie jar instead of the execs serving jail time. ISPs violate their contracts and nobody holds them to task.
Our government is so ineffective it has basically given into private interests.
I think the opposite is true. Our government is so effective that special interests rarely need to lobby, because our reps sell us out on their own. If you want to see who representatives are loyal to, look no further than their campaign contributions.
The problem is that we keep expecting government to solve our problems without ensuring that they’re actually loyal to us, the people. And why should they? It’s not like we’re going to vote them out next time, we’ll keep voting with our tribe because maybe this time they’ll listen (they won’t).
No, for government to actually be worth trusting, we need massive reforms to realign the federal government with the interests of the people. State governments are often better (esp in smaller states) because there’s less to get from buying those reps, though that’s not exactly true in my area (Utah, where the predominant church largely calls the shots on important legislation). Some options:
- eliminate what campaign funds can be spent on, and largely eliminate rallys (candidates can host one town hall in each state), political ads, etc
- replace House districts with proportional representation in each state
- replace FPTP with something like STAR or Approval voting
In general, get money out of politics as much as possible, and attack the two party duopoly. That probably won’t fix it, but it’s a start.
write a new constitution
Maybe. I’m not sure what I’d change that couldn’t be fixed with an amendment or two though, and that’s likely way easier than replacing the Constitution (which I largely like).
If they’d come for the Nazis first, the remainder of that over-repeated list would not matter.
Sure, but there’s an lot of people classifying disagreement as hatred and using that to stamp out the discourse we need to have as a society.
Take positive discrimination. Some see it as corrective action for historical injustices. Some see it as newspeak it for just another form of discrimination and two wrongs don’t make a right. There’s a societal discourse that needs to happen there.
Nobody is preaching hatred, but I expect I’ll get shit for even suggesting there’s a ethical argument against DEI.
You’re talking about equality vs equity. DEI is equitable.
DEI, when applied in the real life, usually means if there’s two people with similar enough skillsets, one hires the more disadvataged one. Some programs use a scoring system, where being marginalized grants you extra scores on top of what you get on the tests, sure, but it’s usually pretty low (10-20 max for a 450+ max score system). It also involves training for the HR, so their prejudices can be overwritten with actual fact.
However, when I first heard about DEI in 2012 (!), it was that people told me I could get fired for being white just so the workplace can expand its “diversity”, while the guy telling me its existence told me how can I help Fidesz to win the next elections, and that I should become a hardcore conservative ASAP because I would grow out of leftism.
It would help if you re-thought your argument from the perspective of a person with the intelligence to understand the difference between discourse and intolerant hate speech. Yes. We are discussing hatred.
No, don’t drag DEI into this. There is no equivalency in this discussion. It just shows your biases to even remotely associate it.
You are proving the parent’s point and you don’t even realize it.
It is intolerant hate speech targeted at people who are specifically targeted by racist, genderist, ableist, and sexist double standards, going against the very pillars of democracy and modern science, to serve a religious and corporatist agenda. What was your point, mfer?
Running a company with people who are all exactly the same is such a stupid idea that it doesn’t even merit a discussion. How are you going to understand your market, your demographics, cultural changes? Dumbest shit I’ve heard in awhile.
Removed by mod
Nobody has a problem censoring hateful and harmful content, so long as they’re the ones that get to decide what that means.
Misinformation and violent rhetoric about minorities is hate. It has no place in society and allowing it achieves nothing expect the proliferation of bigotry.
Why is this just about “minorities” and what is a “minority”? Who is going to define this definition? Why is this not also for hate of any kind such as calls for violence to “non-minorities”?
Sure, but should it be illegal? Unless it’s causing direct harm, I think the answer is no, regardless of how disgusting and hurtful it is.
For example, I can stand on the corner with a sign saying something disgusting like, “all Jews must die” or “all GOP members must die,” and as long as it’s not seen as an actual, credible threat, it’s not and shouldn’t be illegal. Should we, as a society, tolerate it? No, I fully expect people to confront me about it, I expect to lose friends, and I also expect businesses to choose to not serve me due to my speech. However, I also don’t think there should be any legal opposition.
The same is true for platforms, they should absolutely be allowed to tolerate or moderate speech however they choose. That’s their right as the platform owner, and it’s a violation of free speech to restrict that right. However, people also have the right to leave platforms they disagree with, other entities have the right to not boost that content, etc. That’s how free speech works, you have the freedom to say whatever you want, and others have the right to ignore you and not let you onto their platforms.
Okay, but are Jewish people supposed to just accept that you’re walking around calling for the mass murder of their communities?
Weimar Germany was a society that was governed on this principle of a “marketplace of ideas” where “unacceptable evil beliefs will naturally be rejected”, so is the modern united states. You can see two pretty clear examples of how this does not work and just allows fascists to promote their view points.
Say in you’re example you’re not just some guy on the street corner. Say you’re a media executive. Say you’re a politician. Say you’re a billionaire. Is it still permissible? Say you make a new political party called the “kill all the jews” party, and you make friends with all the major media executives to promote your views non-stop all day every day on the air. Is it still permissible? Say you buy out social media websites, and make it against the TOS for those websites to say anything denouncing of the “kill all the jews” party. Then you flood those websites with indoctrination material and fabricated news stories. Is it still permissible?
Hate speech can and should be faced with legal prosecution. You should face legal repercussions for calling for all Jewish people to be murdered. Freedom of speech should not protect violent bigotry. The goal of government should be to provide the greatest quality of life for all. That is incompatible with allowing people to spread violent hate speech and indotrinate others into violent bigotry. This mistake has been made time and again. Fascists are the ones who fight the absolute hardest for “freedom to say nazi shit”. Because of course they want it to be legal for them to do that, they’re nazis. Protecting them from legal consequences for being Nazis literally only benefits Nazis.
And it’s not just calling for mass murder, but providing the framework to organize it. There’s a point where a threat becomes specific and actionable, and at that point, it’s not protected speech any more, it’s incitement. the problem is that the courts have so far failed to recognize that the technique of stochastic terrorism is actionable, just as a more traditional threat is.
Protecting them from legal consequences for being Nazis literally only benefits Nazis.
Yep, it’s going to be cold comfort for the absolutists when they’re being mass-murdered. This is not genteel debate we’re talking about, it’s crimes against humanity, and I’m quite willing to sacrifice a few absolutist principles to prevent even more of such crimes being committed.
Fascism isn’t the only form of authoritarianism, and authoritarianism in general wants to control speech. If you can frame your opponents’ speech as “hate speech,” you can use the law to silence them, even if their speech has no chance of actually causing any harm. If becomes a political tool to maintain power.
The examples I gave are fairly extreme and most would consider them hate speech, but as soon as we allow silencing people over hate speech, we open the door to abuse for political purposes. The charges don’t even need to stick, you just need to tie someone up in the courts so they can’t properly campaign.
Look at less free countries like Venezuela or Russia, they go after speech first (e.g. journalists). That alone should give you serious pause when you hear any attempt to regulate speech.
We don’t have to, there’s no rule saying either we have Nazis or no one can say anything. I don’t agree that “saying nazi stuff” is nebulous enough that it could be construed to mean “saying not nazi stuff”.
I also don’t feel you adequately responded to my pointing out that protecting the rights of Nazis to be Nazis only benefits Nazis at the expense of literally everyone else and allowing Nazis to make political parties and manipulate society.
Your society has fundamentally failed to protect the rights of its citizens if Nazis can exist within it. They should face legal action for their views.
Allowing Nazis to say Nazi stuff doesn’t in any way limit your ability to say anti-Nazi stuff. Banning Nazi stuff enables law enforcement and courts to determine how broadly to interpret that. If Nazi simps (or actual Nazis) get into power, maybe they’ll decide your speech counts as “Nazi stuff.”
Your society has fundamentally failed to protect the rights of its citizens if Nazis can exist within it. They should face legal action for their views.
I strongly disagree. They should face social ostracization and be rejected by the public because their views carry no weight.
If Nazis exist in your society but only at the fringes because people have rejected their ideas, you’ve won. If the only way you can defeat dangerous ideas is by getting the “right people” in power to create laws, you’re on very dangerous ground.
Nazis will limit my speech if they get into power one way or the other, what are you talking about lol. If they get into power they will literally kill me, that’s their stated goal.
Okay, well, in FreeSpeechAbsolutismLand the nazis will now run around convincing everyone that being a Nazi is totally cool and you should do it too, fast forward and congratulations Hitler just got elected because the Nazis bought out the major media organizations and indoctrinated everyone into Nazism. Now, let’s review. Is there anywhere along the way that the government could have done something to prevent Nazis from taking over the country?
Like, come on, this is so ridiculous. You’ve been so convinced by conservatism that restricting the right to say literally anything immediately turns your country into Soviet Russia that you’re here protecting Nazis. It’s just foolish. You’re acting like it’s absolutely impossible to have any laws at all because inevitably they will be misinterpreted to their extreme. It’s like “should murder be illegal because what if people in power decide fetuses count as people and are therefore murder-able” like no we can actually restrict specific things. I don’t see many people advocating the legalization of murder so as to prevent abortion rights from being restricted by advocates of fetal personhood.
Yeah, it’s quite the marketplace of ideas when some asshole is out in the street hitting you in the head with a lead pipe.
And excluding from power those who should never hold it seems an an entirely reasonable feature of a legitimate polity.
I’m looking forward to whenever someone decides that your beliefs are “hate speech” and suddenly you’ll be the one supporting free speech.
“Free speech” is a morally neutral thing. Most leftists don’t go on about “free speech” because it’s not a value we hold. We value tolerance of people of different races, genders, sexualities, and so on. The issue is not speech in general – it’s the content of speech that matters. “Free speech” sidesteps the issue of what is actually being said.
Well, at least you’re honest about being against free speech.
the law shouldn’t dictate this because that would require rigid definitions of misinformation and minorities. are Nazis minorities? What about Israelis? Or Palestinians?
is spreading a rumor misinformation? What if it is later found out to be true?
Fascist speech is not hard to point out. Advocating for the removal of the human rights of minority groups should result in legal punishment. Advocating for violence against minorities should result in legal punishment.
No one is born a Nazi. You should not be able to exist in society as a Nazi. You should face legal action for being a Nazi. We hung people at Nuremberg over this. We have already long since had established definitions of what inciting genocide is, of what spreading fascism is.
Nobody is born a Muslim either, yet pointing out the hatefulness of Islam is considered racism.
What is tiring about this conversation is that you have to balance real historically documented dangers of tolerating fascists, versus the theoretical dangers of whatever some internet person thinks might happen in an imaginary future.
I mean, it’s a tough call, right? “Regulating food sounds nice in theory but what if it gives some future government the power to ban pizza haha gotcha”.
the main problem I have with the government doing this is that they would be the ones to define who the minoritys are. If I remember correctly the US consider veterans to be a protected class, what if a government decided to extend minority status to those that themselves (as part of their “culture”) codified intolerance to existing protected minorities (such as certain religions with respect to homosexuality)?
I mean I’m not advocating for that though. I don’t think it’s impossible to restrict specifically fascist rhetoric. I don’t think it’s impossible to make it illegal to advocate for genocide of racial and gender minorities.
if the (US and many others) governments weren’t run by fascists I might agree, but I know that politics change and facist, homophobic, racists are always going to have a chance to be elected in a democratic (republic) system.
If this is already true then how does making it illegal to be a Nazi change that? If Nazis will already get into power (and then restrict non-nazi or anti-nazi speech), then what exactly is the risk of making it illegal to espouse Nazi ideology?
Nobody has a problem with getting a malignant tumor removed, so long as they’re the ones who decide whether they believe the diagnosis or not.
I have a problem with idea of gov sayimg what goes. Whatever gov. If it’s your site - whatever goes, goes. You set the rules. Sheesh.
But I admit I am nos so sure when it comes to giants like FB or X. If they were like that from the get go, sure, but sudden switch is iffy as hell.
“iffy” isn’t the same as “illegal.” They can change their policies whenever they want, provided that doesn’t violate any contracts, express or implied, with their customers. If they do violate a contract, they need to make fair restitution as per whatever the enforceable terms of the agreement are.
Contracts are only meaningful between parties with more or less equal power. When the power asymmetry is extreme, contracts are just a form of coercion. Consider the case of binding arbitration clauses.
I 100% agree, and there’s a very good chance those binding arbitration agreements will be thrown out by a court. In law, there’s a concept of equal compensation, and if a contract heavily favors one party over another, it is treated as null and void.
For example, at my last job, I pissed off my boss for standing up for myself, but my boss knew I was indespensible, so he transitioned me to a full remote contractor from a salary position. My job was the same, and I was expected to join regular team meetings, but I no longer had my benefits. Anyway, when COVID happened, they “eliminated my position” (probably cost cutting), so I applied for unemployment. It’s not available for contract employees, but they said it would be if I was a de-facto employee (I think that’s the right term). They investigated, my employer fought it, and they determined that I was, in fact, a de-facto employee because of how I and they saw the agreement. In other words, our contract was voided because it was one-sided and only benefitted the company, and they were forced to backpay my unemployment.
That said, many people don’t realize that and are “chilled” (pretty sure that’s the legal term) from taking action about it.
I believe we should change contract law to actively push back on this. Contracts should be as simple as possible, understandable by someone with an 8th grade education, and only include terms necessary to provide the service. I shouldn’t have to scroll through 30 pages of technical jargon to find out if my rights are being violated, that’s unreasonable and should invalidate the entire contract.
