But he’s right here. Just because he’s a fuckstick doesn’t mean he’s always wrong on every issue 100% of the time.
Various forms of censorship under the flag of ‘online safety’ have been pushed by governments since the internet began to exist. And before that with print media and television.
Censorship is not the answer. Never was.
First it was for porn, then it was for video games, then it was for hate speech, it’s always something.
But in the words of Captain Jean-Luc Picard,
“With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably.”
It requires them to restrict certain categories of video, so that users cannot share content on cyberbullying, promoting eating disorders, promotion of self harm or incitement to hatred on a number of grounds.
Yeh, fuck censorship. Let’s all be shitbags and do that stuff instead!
You don’t have to be a porn star or even a porn consumer to oppose laws banning porn.
And you don’t have to be a shitbag to recognize that, while well-intentioned, censorship is still censorship.
I have absolutely no love whatsoever for the people who would spread such crap. I would love to get rid of it. But banning the speech doesn’t do that. It’s like smashing the altimeter in the airplane and then declaring that you’re not crashing anymore. But the reality is, smashing instruments in the airplane is never a great idea whether you are crashing or not. It just prevents you from seeing things you don’t want to. And you get hurt in the process.
Censorship, historically, has never ended up anywhere good.
Porn is performed by consenting adults and consumed by consenting adults.
That’s why porn made from human trafficking, revenge porn (ie leaking nudes of an ex) etc are illegal in most sane countries.
The idea being that porn doesn’t hurt anyone.
Hate speech is harmful. It’s purpose is to hurt people.
So yeh, it should be illegal.
I have no issues discussing hate speech. I do have issues with hate speech being used.
There’s a big difference between hate speech and revenge porn.
A person has rights to their likeness and image. That’s why anybody who goes in front of a camera, be it a porn star or a model or an actor, signs a ‘model release’ giving the photographer authorization to publicize and sell their images. Without that simple one page contract, nothing in the photo shoot can be published.
Porn actors do that. And in fact, they usually do it on video, where the actor holds up their driver’s license and says ‘my name is blah blah I am a pornographic actor and I am consenting to have sex on camera today and authorize this production company to publicize and sell the resulting video’ or something like that.
Revenge porn victims have made no such agreement, and while the penalties are stronger because of the harm it causes them, the legal basis for having any penalty at all is simply that they did not consent to having their likeness and image publicized.
Hate speech has no such issue. It may be harmful to a person or group, but if you remove the very broad ‘hatred’ label, it becomes just an opinion that would otherwise be protected speech.
The other problem is that what considers hatred is very much subjective. For example, if I say wanting to own a gun is evidence of mental illness, a lot of people on Lemmy will agree with that and I will probably get upvotes. If I say wanting to use the bathroom of other than your biological genetic sex is evidence of mental illness, I will probably get banned. What is the difference between the two? Supporting LGBT rights is popular, supporting the second amendment is not. So you create the situation where the only difference between a valid opinion and an invalid one is whether or not it’s accepted mainstream, and that’s a bad way to go.
Also, in a free country, it is generally considered that expressing an opinion which may be detrimental to others is not in itself considered bad. If I say that people over 80 years old should require a yearly driving test, that’s a valid position for me to have and nobody will call me ageist for saying it. If I say that Donald Trump should be arrested rather than elected, that is directly detrimental to a person but it would get me upvotes here. If I said that being Republican is evidence of mental illness, that is directly prejudicial against an entire group which has many different reasons for believing as they do, and it would probably get me upvotes also.
My point is, hate speech as a concept is difficult to define and when you try to ban it with censorship you are just starting down a slippery slope that will have the opposite of the desired effect. You legitimize the counterculture and do nothing to stop the real problem, the actual hatred.
It’s not difficult to define.
It’s about people’s choices.
People can choose to own a gun, choose to want to own a gun, choose to own a whole armoury.
I think owning a gun is stupid. I live in a country that successfully regulates guns.
Saying “I think gun owners are stupid” isn’t hate speech because they have chosen to own a gun.
If I said “gun owners should use their guns in themselves” that becomes hate speech because it’s wishing harm on them.
People choose to be Republicans, trumps choices in life are why he is where he is.
Hate trump because of what he does, not because he has blonde hair.
People don’t choose to be gay, or be trans, or be Jewish, or be black, or be short or whatever.
Which is another way opinions can become hate speech.
If I said “I think gun owners are stupid” that isn’t hate speech.
If I said “I think black people are stupid” that becomes hate speech because it is grouping people by something they have no control over.
For the record, I personally think everything you said is truly repugnant. Although I’d point out the first one I’ve seen applied to Trump voters, frequently, in mainstream discussions on ‘civilized’ platforms, with little or no moderator response. So apparently it’s okay to be prejudiced and discriminatory as long as it’s against someone others don’t like.
That said, my problem is not the banning of these statements. Most platforms quite reasonably would ban such things, and I have no problem with that.
What I have a problem with is the government REQUIRING a platform ban certain speech. I don’t care if it’s the most vile horrible hate filled shit. It should be up to the platform, not the government, to decide what speech is acceptable or not.
Because if government gets to decide what private citizens are allowed to discuss on privately-owned forums, that’s a very slippery slope.
In that case, what is the line between “simply” hate speech and actual radicalization to terroristic acts and/or conspiracy to terroristic acts and/or incitement to terroristic acts? At what point does it stop being “someone should [violent act] the [slur]s” and become “I bought a gun and several mags and have been practicing for the [dogwhistle mass violence event], let’s [violent act] the [slur]s”? At what point does it stop being 4chan trolling and become all but admitting intention to commit the Christchurch shooting? A Stormfront discussion forum becoming outright planning for and incitement to a Jan 6th riot?
A better question is where is the line between ‘simply’ a controversial opinion and actual hate speech?
Because if a platform is required by law to ban hate speech, that’s going to sweep up a lot of controversial opinions along with it.
Is it ‘hate speech’ to express any negative opinion about an oppressed group? And if not, where do you draw THAT line?
(if you want an answer to your original question I wrote one out but it’s somewhat long…)
I think reducing the visibility of some kinds of content can be good, especially for those under 18. E.g. when it comes to content around suicide, I think it is better if children/teenagers see “there is support for you, please speak to a charity for free on this phone number” instead of pro-suicide content.
That I would actually very much agree with. As Elon himself said in the early days of the Twitter takeover, “free speech does not mean free reach”.
This is also why I think engagement algorithms are a cancer on our civilization. If it is in a platforms monetary interest to amplify the most vile anger inducing stuff, be that stuff that is actively bad like hate speech or simply divisive like a lot of political crap, that is bad for our society. It pushes us farther apart when we should be coming together to fix the problems that we can agree on.
In concept I agree with him on that. I support your right to say awful shit, but I am not going to spread that message to others.
Where Elon lost the plot was thinking of Twitter as a public square. It’s a nice thought, but it requires the whole platform to be 100% neutral and unbiased. So it’s all good to call Twitter the public square, but that’s a lot harder to take seriously when the guy in charge of policing the square is heavily biased.
it’s all good to call Twitter the public square, but that’s a lot harder to take seriously when the guy in charge of policing the square is heavily biased
I agree. A public town square is good but like you say, it should be neutral, and Xitter is not that.
On the censorship thing, maybe it is okay if an online messaging website bans certain content, like pro-suicide content, or pro-terrorism content, etc. You could call that censorship but you could also call it safety. I don’t think anybody really believes in 100% free speech anyway, because if a person shouts “FIRE!” in a crowded theatre, when there is actually no fire, and it causes a stampede which kills people, should we not punish their speech because they’re free to say it?
Freedom of political speech is important, but maybe there should be some fundamental rules about certain types of speech.
On the censorship thing, maybe it is okay if an online messaging website bans certain content, like pro-suicide content, or pro-terrorism content, etc. You could call that censorship but you could also call it safety.
I think that should go either way and I have no problem if a platform decides to ban that kind of stuff. I certainly have no desire to consume such material.
I have a BIG problem when the government decides that platforms are required to ban things. Even if they’re things I don’t myself want to read.
Maybe. I think it might be okay if the government bans those things though, because people would still have political freedom to voice whatever political view they like, as long as they’re not promoting violence or harm to particular people in pursuit of political aims.
Perhaps it’s not easy to decide where the line of legality should go though, which is why this topic is controversial.
Perhaps it’s not easy to decide where the line of legality should go though, which is why this topic is controversial.
It’s not easy. Especially when you need to determine what’s a controversial opinion and what’s hate speech.
For example (and this is NOT anything I agree with)-- if one said ‘I don’t believe gay people should be allowed to adopt children, because science shows both male and female influences are more helpful when applied together for a child’s development’ what is that? Is that hate speech because it advocates taking rights away from gay people? Is it an opinion stated with the goal of protecting children?
Does it become illegal to express almost any position that isn’t pro-gay?
It’s a VERY slippery slope.
Certain speech is criminal like inciting violence. If someone said ‘I’m going to buy a gun and kill gay people, and you all should kill gay people too’ that is a specific statement of criminal intent and also inciting violence. That will get you cops knocking on your door (and rightly so).
You can apply a ‘test’ to that- does it show specific intent to commit a crime? Does it encourage others to commit crimes? Yes on both.
But how do you ‘test’ someone saying they don’t think gay people should be allowed to adopt? How do you tell from a few words if they have a hate-filled heart, or if they legitimately think gay people can’t provide a loving home? You can’t.
For the record- I’m using LGBT as an example. I personally liberal-libertarian— I believe married gay couples should have guns to defend their adopted children and pot farms from criminals, with single payer healthcare to keep them alive if they get hurt. I’m against almost any effort to take away anyone’s rights.
So I’ll fight for the asshat’s right to say ‘fuck the gays’ just as hard as I’ll fight for the LGBT person’s right to marry, adopt, and use whatever bathroom they want (provided they wash their hands).
Absolutely fuck spez.
But he’s right here. Just because he’s a fuckstick doesn’t mean he’s always wrong on every issue 100% of the time.
Various forms of censorship under the flag of ‘online safety’ have been pushed by governments since the internet began to exist. And before that with print media and television. Censorship is not the answer. Never was. First it was for porn, then it was for video games, then it was for hate speech, it’s always something.
But in the words of Captain Jean-Luc Picard,
Censorship must be opposed.
Yeh, fuck censorship. Let’s all be shitbags and do that stuff instead!
To be fair, censorship on Reddit is already very very aggressive. I was banned for saying “yay” on a news thread about the death of the queen.
You don’t have to be a porn star or even a porn consumer to oppose laws banning porn.
And you don’t have to be a shitbag to recognize that, while well-intentioned, censorship is still censorship.
I have absolutely no love whatsoever for the people who would spread such crap. I would love to get rid of it. But banning the speech doesn’t do that. It’s like smashing the altimeter in the airplane and then declaring that you’re not crashing anymore. But the reality is, smashing instruments in the airplane is never a great idea whether you are crashing or not. It just prevents you from seeing things you don’t want to. And you get hurt in the process.
Censorship, historically, has never ended up anywhere good.
Porn is performed by consenting adults and consumed by consenting adults.
That’s why porn made from human trafficking, revenge porn (ie leaking nudes of an ex) etc are illegal in most sane countries.
The idea being that porn doesn’t hurt anyone.
Hate speech is harmful. It’s purpose is to hurt people.
So yeh, it should be illegal.
I have no issues discussing hate speech. I do have issues with hate speech being used.
There’s a big difference between hate speech and revenge porn.
A person has rights to their likeness and image. That’s why anybody who goes in front of a camera, be it a porn star or a model or an actor, signs a ‘model release’ giving the photographer authorization to publicize and sell their images. Without that simple one page contract, nothing in the photo shoot can be published. Porn actors do that. And in fact, they usually do it on video, where the actor holds up their driver’s license and says ‘my name is blah blah I am a pornographic actor and I am consenting to have sex on camera today and authorize this production company to publicize and sell the resulting video’ or something like that. Revenge porn victims have made no such agreement, and while the penalties are stronger because of the harm it causes them, the legal basis for having any penalty at all is simply that they did not consent to having their likeness and image publicized.
Hate speech has no such issue. It may be harmful to a person or group, but if you remove the very broad ‘hatred’ label, it becomes just an opinion that would otherwise be protected speech.
The other problem is that what considers hatred is very much subjective. For example, if I say wanting to own a gun is evidence of mental illness, a lot of people on Lemmy will agree with that and I will probably get upvotes. If I say wanting to use the bathroom of other than your biological genetic sex is evidence of mental illness, I will probably get banned. What is the difference between the two? Supporting LGBT rights is popular, supporting the second amendment is not. So you create the situation where the only difference between a valid opinion and an invalid one is whether or not it’s accepted mainstream, and that’s a bad way to go.
Also, in a free country, it is generally considered that expressing an opinion which may be detrimental to others is not in itself considered bad. If I say that people over 80 years old should require a yearly driving test, that’s a valid position for me to have and nobody will call me ageist for saying it. If I say that Donald Trump should be arrested rather than elected, that is directly detrimental to a person but it would get me upvotes here. If I said that being Republican is evidence of mental illness, that is directly prejudicial against an entire group which has many different reasons for believing as they do, and it would probably get me upvotes also.
My point is, hate speech as a concept is difficult to define and when you try to ban it with censorship you are just starting down a slippery slope that will have the opposite of the desired effect. You legitimize the counterculture and do nothing to stop the real problem, the actual hatred.
It’s not difficult to define.
It’s about people’s choices.
People can choose to own a gun, choose to want to own a gun, choose to own a whole armoury.
I think owning a gun is stupid. I live in a country that successfully regulates guns.
Saying “I think gun owners are stupid” isn’t hate speech because they have chosen to own a gun.
If I said “gun owners should use their guns in themselves” that becomes hate speech because it’s wishing harm on them.
People choose to be Republicans, trumps choices in life are why he is where he is.
Hate trump because of what he does, not because he has blonde hair.
People don’t choose to be gay, or be trans, or be Jewish, or be black, or be short or whatever.
Which is another way opinions can become hate speech.
If I said “I think gun owners are stupid” that isn’t hate speech.
If I said “I think black people are stupid” that becomes hate speech because it is grouping people by something they have no control over.
How about incitements to violence and outright explicit disinformation/misinformation, like:
For the record, I personally think everything you said is truly repugnant. Although I’d point out the first one I’ve seen applied to Trump voters, frequently, in mainstream discussions on ‘civilized’ platforms, with little or no moderator response. So apparently it’s okay to be prejudiced and discriminatory as long as it’s against someone others don’t like.
That said, my problem is not the banning of these statements. Most platforms quite reasonably would ban such things, and I have no problem with that.
What I have a problem with is the government REQUIRING a platform ban certain speech. I don’t care if it’s the most vile horrible hate filled shit. It should be up to the platform, not the government, to decide what speech is acceptable or not.
Because if government gets to decide what private citizens are allowed to discuss on privately-owned forums, that’s a very slippery slope.
And I still say it’s counterproductive.
In that case, what is the line between “simply” hate speech and actual radicalization to terroristic acts and/or conspiracy to terroristic acts and/or incitement to terroristic acts? At what point does it stop being “someone should [violent act] the [slur]s” and become “I bought a gun and several mags and have been practicing for the [dogwhistle mass violence event], let’s [violent act] the [slur]s”? At what point does it stop being 4chan trolling and become all but admitting intention to commit the Christchurch shooting? A Stormfront discussion forum becoming outright planning for and incitement to a Jan 6th riot?
A better question is where is the line between ‘simply’ a controversial opinion and actual hate speech?
Because if a platform is required by law to ban hate speech, that’s going to sweep up a lot of controversial opinions along with it.
Is it ‘hate speech’ to express any negative opinion about an oppressed group? And if not, where do you draw THAT line?
(if you want an answer to your original question I wrote one out but it’s somewhat long…)
I think reducing the visibility of some kinds of content can be good, especially for those under 18. E.g. when it comes to content around suicide, I think it is better if children/teenagers see “there is support for you, please speak to a charity for free on this phone number” instead of pro-suicide content.
That I would actually very much agree with. As Elon himself said in the early days of the Twitter takeover, “free speech does not mean free reach”.
This is also why I think engagement algorithms are a cancer on our civilization. If it is in a platforms monetary interest to amplify the most vile anger inducing stuff, be that stuff that is actively bad like hate speech or simply divisive like a lot of political crap, that is bad for our society. It pushes us farther apart when we should be coming together to fix the problems that we can agree on.
I understood that to mean “I want to claim I’m a ‘free speech absolutist’ while actually only promoting things I agree with”
In concept I agree with him on that. I support your right to say awful shit, but I am not going to spread that message to others. Where Elon lost the plot was thinking of Twitter as a public square. It’s a nice thought, but it requires the whole platform to be 100% neutral and unbiased. So it’s all good to call Twitter the public square, but that’s a lot harder to take seriously when the guy in charge of policing the square is heavily biased.
I agree. A public town square is good but like you say, it should be neutral, and Xitter is not that.
On the censorship thing, maybe it is okay if an online messaging website bans certain content, like pro-suicide content, or pro-terrorism content, etc. You could call that censorship but you could also call it safety. I don’t think anybody really believes in 100% free speech anyway, because if a person shouts “FIRE!” in a crowded theatre, when there is actually no fire, and it causes a stampede which kills people, should we not punish their speech because they’re free to say it?
Freedom of political speech is important, but maybe there should be some fundamental rules about certain types of speech.
I think that should go either way and I have no problem if a platform decides to ban that kind of stuff. I certainly have no desire to consume such material.
I have a BIG problem when the government decides that platforms are required to ban things. Even if they’re things I don’t myself want to read.
It’s a slippery slope.
Maybe. I think it might be okay if the government bans those things though, because people would still have political freedom to voice whatever political view they like, as long as they’re not promoting violence or harm to particular people in pursuit of political aims.
Perhaps it’s not easy to decide where the line of legality should go though, which is why this topic is controversial.
It’s not easy. Especially when you need to determine what’s a controversial opinion and what’s hate speech.
For example (and this is NOT anything I agree with)-- if one said ‘I don’t believe gay people should be allowed to adopt children, because science shows both male and female influences are more helpful when applied together for a child’s development’ what is that? Is that hate speech because it advocates taking rights away from gay people? Is it an opinion stated with the goal of protecting children?
Does it become illegal to express almost any position that isn’t pro-gay?
It’s a VERY slippery slope.
Certain speech is criminal like inciting violence. If someone said ‘I’m going to buy a gun and kill gay people, and you all should kill gay people too’ that is a specific statement of criminal intent and also inciting violence. That will get you cops knocking on your door (and rightly so).
You can apply a ‘test’ to that- does it show specific intent to commit a crime? Does it encourage others to commit crimes? Yes on both.
But how do you ‘test’ someone saying they don’t think gay people should be allowed to adopt? How do you tell from a few words if they have a hate-filled heart, or if they legitimately think gay people can’t provide a loving home? You can’t.
For the record- I’m using LGBT as an example. I personally liberal-libertarian— I believe married gay couples should have guns to defend their adopted children and pot farms from criminals, with single payer healthcare to keep them alive if they get hurt. I’m against almost any effort to take away anyone’s rights.
So I’ll fight for the asshat’s right to say ‘fuck the gays’ just as hard as I’ll fight for the LGBT person’s right to marry, adopt, and use whatever bathroom they want (provided they wash their hands).