Serious question: If people want to post hateful content, what is preventing them from doing so on either their own website, or to one of the many existing websites which are friendly to that sort of content?
I honesrly don’t understand why mainstream social media websites should be allowing that sort of thing. There are plenty of other places they can freely post, so they really are not being censored.
Nothing is; that's great. (Let's see how long it lasts!)
But we've seen a huge embrace of censorship on our dominant communication platforms (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube).
There was a time when Twitter prided itself on its commitment to free speech. They patted themselves on the back and chuckled as Twitter helped foment revolutions in other countries.
Now its caused a fair bit of political upheaval back in the good ol' USA, and the official line has become "we didn’t fully predict or understand the real-world negative consequences" of "public conversation."
It's very hard, if not impossible, for someone to have a "their own website" that doesn't have someone in the loop that can kick them off: hosting company, domain registrar, ISP, etc. See what happens regularly with piracy sites, for example.
If there were any examples besides Stormfront, that would make more sense.
But it seems like if that were to actually happen, it would make more sense for pushback to be aimed at those providers, rather than it currently being aimed at private social media companies out of a fear of what providers “may” do if people were to set up their own websites (or use one of the many existing ones).
People need to stop using the word "hate" and start calling people out whenever they use it. "Hate" just means "blasphemy". Once you make this substitution, discussions like this start to make a lot more sense.
Serious question: If people want to post blasphemy, what's preventing them from doing so? [...] I honestly don’t understand why mainstream social media websites should be allowing that sort of thing.
In China, when you post a politically unacceptable idea on a social media site, it is removed by a state censor. In the US, when you post a politically unacceptable idea on a social media site, it is removed by corporate censors or allied groups like the SPLC.
I'm not sure I see a huge difference, in practice.
"But if you don't like Twitter's policies, you can just make your own app." Sure, like Gab, which was subsequently banned from both the Google and Apple app stores for not itself censoring. Not a lot of breathing room when the modern communication mediums are dominated by a duopoly.
But that's all tangential to my point, which was referring to the cultural appreciation of free speech.
It's hard to imagine now, but there was a time when site's like Twitter claimed to be strong supporters of speech as both a principle and a practical reality to strive for.
Nowadays, the more common attitude is, "if we allow people to speak freely, they will spread conspiracy theories, fake news, and hateful thoughts harmful to society, so these ideas must be suppressed."
In just a few years, the zeitgeist has gone from valuing free speech as one of our most cherished ideals to valuing social cohesion as the most important good.
How to jump the shark on Hacker News: compare a private US corporation who has ample competition to communist China, where people are literally imprisoned for posting "politically-unacceptable ideas".
I can understand that an app may be more convenient to use, but needing to use the website instead of an app seems pretty different than having no place at all to post the messsages that most users do not want on Twitter.
The only thing that's "Pretty crazy" is this idea that giving free reign to the Nazis and the trolls represents an "embrace of free speech." Americans really don't understand their own history. Free speech has nothing to do with letting the most vile elements of society and hostile foreign nations deploy bots to spread as much hate and fear as possible.
I think the key change here is how completely radicalized even the mainstream has become. This popular defense of actual neo-Nazis would be unthinkable even just 20 years ago. But now we see the power of common interests (ending all immigration) and the terminal logic of "the enemy of my enemy."
True, but it's sad to see people continue to use Twitter even when they're aware of it's active censorship. Twitter isn't doing anything 'wrong' technically, since it's well within their rights as a private company, but it's still sad to see a society accept and embrace the practices instead of shunning them.
Serious question: If people want to post hateful content, what is preventing them from doing so on either their own website, or to one of the many existing websites which are friendly to that sort of content?
I honesrly don’t understand why mainstream social media websites should be allowing that sort of thing. There are plenty of other places they can freely post, so they really are not being censored.
Nothing is; that's great. (Let's see how long it lasts!)
But we've seen a huge embrace of censorship on our dominant communication platforms (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube).
There was a time when Twitter prided itself on its commitment to free speech. They patted themselves on the back and chuckled as Twitter helped foment revolutions in other countries.
Now its caused a fair bit of political upheaval back in the good ol' USA, and the official line has become "we didn’t fully predict or understand the real-world negative consequences" of "public conversation."
Censorship culture.
This is simplistic to the point of mischaracterization.
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It's very hard, if not impossible, for someone to have a "their own website" that doesn't have someone in the loop that can kick them off: hosting company, domain registrar, ISP, etc. See what happens regularly with piracy sites, for example.
If there were any examples besides Stormfront, that would make more sense.
But it seems like if that were to actually happen, it would make more sense for pushback to be aimed at those providers, rather than it currently being aimed at private social media companies out of a fear of what providers “may” do if people were to set up their own websites (or use one of the many existing ones).
4 replies →
People need to stop using the word "hate" and start calling people out whenever they use it. "Hate" just means "blasphemy". Once you make this substitution, discussions like this start to make a lot more sense.
Serious question: If people want to post blasphemy, what's preventing them from doing so? [...] I honestly don’t understand why mainstream social media websites should be allowing that sort of thing.
All that is necessary for this analogy to become literal truth is to classify blasphemy (perhaps only against selected religions) as hate speech.
> what is preventing them from doing so on either their own website
Hosting companies that decide what is and isn't acceptable speech just like Twitter and Google are doing right now.
Twitter is under no obligation to distribute your content for you for free.
In China, when you post a politically unacceptable idea on a social media site, it is removed by a state censor. In the US, when you post a politically unacceptable idea on a social media site, it is removed by corporate censors or allied groups like the SPLC.
I'm not sure I see a huge difference, in practice.
"But if you don't like Twitter's policies, you can just make your own app." Sure, like Gab, which was subsequently banned from both the Google and Apple app stores for not itself censoring. Not a lot of breathing room when the modern communication mediums are dominated by a duopoly.
But that's all tangential to my point, which was referring to the cultural appreciation of free speech.
It's hard to imagine now, but there was a time when site's like Twitter claimed to be strong supporters of speech as both a principle and a practical reality to strive for.
Nowadays, the more common attitude is, "if we allow people to speak freely, they will spread conspiracy theories, fake news, and hateful thoughts harmful to society, so these ideas must be suppressed."
In just a few years, the zeitgeist has gone from valuing free speech as one of our most cherished ideals to valuing social cohesion as the most important good.
Pretty crazy.
And given that the corporations have bought the Government, it is really VERY similar to what is happening in China.
How to jump the shark on Hacker News: compare a private US corporation who has ample competition to communist China, where people are literally imprisoned for posting "politically-unacceptable ideas".
I can understand that an app may be more convenient to use, but needing to use the website instead of an app seems pretty different than having no place at all to post the messsages that most users do not want on Twitter.
5 replies →
The only thing that's "Pretty crazy" is this idea that giving free reign to the Nazis and the trolls represents an "embrace of free speech." Americans really don't understand their own history. Free speech has nothing to do with letting the most vile elements of society and hostile foreign nations deploy bots to spread as much hate and fear as possible.
I think the key change here is how completely radicalized even the mainstream has become. This popular defense of actual neo-Nazis would be unthinkable even just 20 years ago. But now we see the power of common interests (ending all immigration) and the terminal logic of "the enemy of my enemy."
1 reply →
under no obligation to distribute your content for you
Then it’s not a “common carrier”, can’t have it both ways.
True, but it's sad to see people continue to use Twitter even when they're aware of it's active censorship. Twitter isn't doing anything 'wrong' technically, since it's well within their rights as a private company, but it's still sad to see a society accept and embrace the practices instead of shunning them.
By "the west" I presume you mean the corporatocacy/security state running the vast majority of the US and Western Europe?
Truly free speech doesn't exist; there are always limits based on societal norms and convention.
Should've said 'the USA' & 'the internet subcultures I have sampled'. Regret the error.
You would quickly change your mind about that, while you read death treats sent to your daughter by trolls.
Pretty sure death threats aren't protected speech unlike other hate crimes like intentionally misgendering him.
No, I would still think it was remarkable.
I'm not sure if I should read your comment as some sort of meta-threat...?