Comment by pbhjpbhj
5 days ago
What country are you from? To "wish a politically motivated death" on someone is illegal there?
Reddit set itself up as a speakeasy, people speak their minds openly because it appears in some areas to be free of thought policing.
Do you think it is wrong to wish a dictator dead? Over the past decades USA has not only wished it, but made it happen, at the cost of many lives.
Reddit definitely has not set themselves up that way. Many people got banned just for saying they understand and empathize with Luigi's motivations.
Historically, before they banned a lot of subreddits. Arguably, to become more attractive to advertisers. I think that was when Voat was set up, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voat (c.2015).
There was a lot of unsavoury content (probably a lot of illegal content), Reddit was more like a -chan site to my recollection. Then it was cleaned up somewhat for the sell off to Conde Nast.
So Reddit (past tense) set themselves up as place for any user content (?), but have moved away from that progressively over the last, what, 15 years.
Maybe it wasn't a conscious thing, maybe it was a startup thing ... Alex O' might yet correct me.
> What country are you from? To "wish a politically motivated death" on someone is illegal there?
It is illegal in most countries, no? Even in USA you aren't allowed to instigate murder.
I didn't think it should be illegal to say "I wish X were dead" unless you have the means to make it happen like a rabid audience with a track record of killing people you wish were dead. Even then, I think there needs to be coordination or a wink nod of some kind that needs to be proven to muzzle free speech.
Freedom of speech we don't like is the true litmus test of free speech. It is trivial to say I support free speech when someone says nice things about me.
Freedom of speech is a very nuanced issue. Taking a black and white approach is problematic.
The classic example, is can you shout "Fire!" in a crowded cinema? Should this be illegal in itself? Probably not. But if this causes a panic that kills people in a crush for the exits, then you are very culpable for these deaths.
But even if nothing bad happens, should there be laws against what you did? Saying no is in my mind similar to saying if you shoot at somebody but miss them, did you break any laws?
FWIW, yes, I do support free speech. Very much. But I also recognize you must be responsible for the consequences of what you say, and this leads to some very tricky ethical situations - Should you be held accountable for what could have happened, even if it did not happen?
> Freedom of speech we don't like is the true litmus test of free speech. It is trivial to say I support free speech when someone says nice things about me.
People are free to say mean things, they just aren't allowed to encourage violence. There is a difference between saying "I hate how Trump runs the country, he is an idiot" and "Can't someone kill Trump already".
I have seen a lot of the second kind on reddit. The first kind gets you arrested in Britain though, they don't have any meaningful free speech there.
But as you say what constitutes "encouraging violence" is not entirely clear, but most agrees that encouraging violence shouldn't be protected by free speech laws.
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Saying, and indeed wishing, "who will rid me of this troublesome pr..esident", for example, is not anything like "instigating murder". In most democracies people are allowed to think, and express their thoughts. Making plans, or taking other actions relating to those thoughts, that's when things become might become criminal.
Indeed, freedom of conscience is usually considered a human right.
> What country are you from? To "wish a politically motivated death" on someone is illegal there?
This is a strawman. Your quoted text does not come from GP and does not fairly represent any of its argument (which makes your use of italics hard to understand).
Actual incitement to political violence is actually occurring on these platforms. People have screencaps and everything.
Many people in this forum mistakenly think that violence isn’t a historically efficient way to solve political problems.
Well at least we can all agree violence is efficient way to create political problems
Remind me again how the American slaves were freed?
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And many others think that violence is the only way to solve political problems.