Because different platforms have different ranges of civility as well.
Who decides when a conspiracy becomes harmful? Should we ban flat-earthers from posting their views? After all, if everyone believed it, we would set science back countless centuries.
The way to combat false ideas is with truth; a culture that is always searching for the truth. That can only be facilitated by unhindered speech.
This is extremely naive. As the saying goes, a lie can go around the world before the truth can finish putting on its shoes.
edit: maybe rather than downvoting (which is a type of censorship) y’all should provide a response.
NSA surveillance was a conspiracy theory before Snowden, so I don’t think the “conspiracy theory” accusation warrants censorship.
Here's another saying for you: you can fool some people all the time, and all the people some of the time, but you can't fool all the people all the time. In other words, eventually the truth wins out.
I guess our sayings cancel out.
If combating false ideas with truth worked, then surely these problems shouldn't exist in America, the land of the free. In the arena of free speech, only the values with the most truth should thrive. Yet that's clearly not the case.
This is the paradox of tolerance. We can say that unhindered speech is the way of countering harmful speech, but then I ask you: What led to the rise of such harmful speech today?
Because that's how the process works. Liars lie and evidence proves them wrong. It doesn't make them disappear from existence, it just makes it so you can discover the truth.
Without free speech there are no fewer lies, all you do is suppress the truth. The Party's version is the only version even when it's fiction.
Is liars being about to lie worth a body count?
The body count of truth tellers not being able to tell the truth is dramatically higher.
Imagine the result if Richard Nixon had put climate scientists in the same box as you would put anti-vaxxers.
Hypothetical harms are generally less harmful than real ones.
I don't really buy "restricted speech is worth letting people die over".
> Sure, censorship can be harmful, but if the best argument your can put forward is a slippery slope, thats not particularly compelling.
What slippery slope? Censoring climate scientists is the first thing politicians in the pocket of oil companies would do with censorship powers.
> Hypothetical harms are generally less harmful than real ones.
The actual harms of censorship are widespread and well-documented. If you want to go straight for the serious examples, look at The Great Leap Forward, Stalin's purges or the holocaust. In each case there were not only direct large scale executions of political dissenters, the censorship allowed other atrocities to be kept quiet. Much of the scale and inhumanity of the holocaust wasn't discovered until the end of the war as a result of Nazi censorship, and keeping it quiet allowed it to continue for longer with less opposition both domestically and internationally. For example, the US could have entered the war earlier.
But it also goes all the way down to pedestrian squabbles where people disagree over matters of life and death at smaller scale (e.g. the safety of a building or a bridge). Censoring true facts has literally been fatal countless times.
Only one of our positions is hypothetical.
>What slippery slope? Censoring climate scientists is the first thing politicians in the pocket of oil companies would do with censorship powers.
Says you. You're running under the (faulty) assumption that such censorship would be unregulated. I also wouldn't support such a system, but thankfully that's not what I'd propose either.
Yes, the actual harms of unrestricted censorship are widespread and well documented. But most of the EU censors things that are free to say in the US (antisemitism, as an example), and yet somehow manage to rate higher on independent ratings of press freedom[0].
You're argument reduces to "unregulated power is bad". Yes. Agreed, completely. Unregulated power is bad.
>Much of the scale and inhumanity of the holocaust wasn't discovered until the end of the war as a result of Nazi censorship, and keeping it quiet allowed it to continue for longer with less opposition both domestically and internationally. For example, the US could have entered the war earlier.
This is some strong historical revisionism. No, the US just took a strong turn toward isolationism post WWI and the great depression. The atrocities of the holocaust were not some perfectly kept secret. I'd encourage you to read up on US foreign policy in the 30s, as well as general sentiment among the population [1]. Among other things, antisemitism, worry about another economic downturn, and a strong isolationist ideal underlined by the opinion that "We shouldn't send American boys to die solving a European problem"[2] were the main reasons the US didn't enter the war.
Even when they did, it wasn't out of a sense of civic duty to save the Jews, it was because "oh crap, Germany could actually threaten the US and the world".
Allied governments absolutely knew about the crimes the Nazis were committing, they just didn't care. The population didn't really care either.
Immediately jumping to "the Nazis and Stalin censored people, so censorship is bad" isn't an argument, its fearmongering, especially when the claimed impacts of censorship aren't really true.
[0]: https://rsf.org/en/ranking# [1]: https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/the-united... [2]: And honestly, given the horrors of WWI and trench warfare, I can understand this attitude.
Then it's yours, because there are many documented cases of fatalities occurring as a result of the suppression of inconvenient facts.
> Says you.
Says the Union of Concerned Scientists.
https://www.ucsusa.org/our-work/center-science-and-democracy...
> You're running under the (faulty) assumption that such censorship would be unregulated. I also wouldn't support such a system, but thankfully that's not what I'd propose either.
It's impossible to actually regulate censorship because for regulations to be sound they have to be vigorously debated, but the public can't, by definition, debate whether something should be censored if nobody can talk about it because it's being censored.
> Yes, the actual harms of unrestricted censorship are widespread and well documented. But most of the EU censors things that are free to say in the US (antisemitism, as an example), and yet somehow manage to rate higher on independent ratings of press freedom[0].
In-spite-of, not because-of. And the US scores poorly largely because of this new radicalized censorship where crazy people are now committing acts of violence against journalists that publish stories they disagree with, and because of all the abuse of power (arresting journalists on charges that won't stick as retaliation for undesired coverage/investigating). Succumbing to populist censorial sentiment or creating new opportunities for more of that abuse obviously wouldn't help matters.
> No, the US just took a strong turn toward isolationism post WWI and the great depression.
Those were the reasons they didn't enter the war when it just seemed to be a war. Knowing what was actually happening could have overcome that sooner, or at a minimum spurred people to do more to facilitate the escape of Jews from the affected countries.
> The atrocities of the holocaust were not some perfectly kept secret.
Their full scope was not publicly known until near the end. We recently learned that the government knew earlier:
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/world-history/holoc...
But even that was the year after the US entered the war.
> Immediately jumping to "the Nazis and Stalin censored people, so censorship is bad" isn't an argument
"The Nazis and Stalin censored people and they were bad so censorship is bad" is not an argument because it applies equally to building roads or using radios.
"The Nazis and Stalin censored people and as a direct result of the censorship more people died" is a cautionary tale and a strong indictment of censorship.
To begin, the atrocities of the "Holocaust" as its commonly referred to, as the large scale extermination of the Jews, didn't really begin until after the US entered the war. Before then, knowledge of the the general plight of Jews in Germany and Europe were pretty much common knowledge. So your claim that broader knowledge of the Holocaust might have caused the US to enter the war earlier has a flaw: There was, at the time, not yet a Holocaust for people to be aware of.
As for everything else, I'm actually perplexed by portions of your argument, because you seem to be arguing that the government should not censor people, and that populist censorship via speech is bad. It seems pretty clear to me that if the US outlawed threatening journalists, it would lead to an improvement in press freedom, and from your comments, it sounds like you would agree with this, since its a form of "radicalized censorship". But I think you would also argue that such a law was itself censorship and unethical. This is especially true since you conflate censorship and suppression.
Censorship is but one form of suppression. I can suppress an idea without censoring it by generating so much nonsense that an observer can't readily discern between fact and fiction. You clearly have an objection to the suppression of facts, and I would agree that that's not a good thing.
But where I disagree with you is that censorship necessitates the suppression of facts. In fact I think often, well "aimed" censorship can improve discourse and prevent the suppression of ideas.
>It's impossible to actually regulate censorship because for regulations to be sound they have to be vigorously debated, but the public can't, by definition, debate whether something should be censored if nobody can talk about it because it's being censored.
I do also want to call this out specifically. We are, right now, albeit by proxy, vigorously debating the right to support Naziism. Yet, I don't see any reason for an observer to believe that either you or I ourselves supports Naziism. Censoring "support of Nazis" does not necessitate censoring "support of the right to express support of Nazis".
However, your answer would be to deplatform those who would post such ideas. Do you honestly think that would make it better? Did deplatforming Alex Jones help people? It just galvanized those who believed there was a conspiracy and made him all the more popular.
How about we take on the hard task of trying to actually reach those who we believe have false ideas. For example, how do people respond to flat-earthers? Constant ridicule and laughter. The reason they believe in these theories is a lot more complex and nuanced than merely that they are 'stupid'.
Also in your example of responding to flat-earthers what other alternative is there when they refuse to listen to reason? When you can't engage with them on any level?
Why is it my responsibility for example to be the one to engage with people who might view me as being a lesser human being due to my skin color or sexual preferences?
One of the Sandy Hook parents wrote how she is able to check her mail now without getting multiple threats in the mail every single day.
You point at anti-science conspiracy theories as a failing of free speech, and you're probably right, but what would you have us do otherwise? A world in which some central authority dictates that certain opinions are never allowed to be expressed, to me, seems like an absolutely horrible place to live, even if it meant that antivaxxers couldn't spread their crap anymore.
Furthermore, there is no such thing as a perfect political system. It's not enough to point at what free speech fails at, you also need to suggest what we should be doing instead, and how the failings of that system wouldn't be worse.
It's a pretty good comparison to democracy, in my mind. It's the worst system ever invented, except for all of the other ones we've tried.
I always ask this but do you believe that was a mistake? Do you think people have that specific right to exercise their freedom of speech?
Obviously there are degrees of harm to speech. We've already collectively determined this as a society. And to me, anti-vaxxers are a great example. We arrest anti-vaxxers if their children suffer due to child abuse. Do you believe that to be a mistake, that they don't have the right to exercise their own beliefs?
I always ask this but do you believe that was a mistake? Do you think people have that specific right to exercise their freedom of speech?
I think I'm unclear on what you're asking, but as an American who sees a great deal of value in that approach, and seeing the fruits of the opposite approach (my go-to example being the UK, where libel laws are significantly more open for abuse), then, yes, I do think people have that specific right - on the level of human rights, even.
Do you believe that to be a mistake, that they don't have the right to exercise their own beliefs?
That is a different question - speech and action are two different things.
It’s actually much worse, the restriction itself is highly racist; only blacks are allowed to use the “n-word”, while whites (and other races I presume) aren’t.
Ugh...yes, it is. Our people are just too stupid to find the dissenting opinions.
The problem I see isn't so much that people harbor conspiracies, but that they do so without interacting with the world at large. They do so in a bubble, and in a bubble, a conspiracy can be amplified. This is how extremism develops.
The core problem is that people aren't interacting with enough different types of people in order to moderate their own behavior.
That's not a problem that needs to be "solved." It's not necessary to force everyone to think alike, or believe the same things. It's not necessary - or desirable - to try to force everyone to never think/believe mean things or unhappy thoughts.
It's similar to saying: how do you solve people that believe in ghosts or god or unicorns (particularly if you're an atheist and believe that's all bunk). Consider hardcore religious people that believe most people are going to burn in hell, and or they believe that most dead people are in hell. Now ask the same question: isn't that offensive to those people that are going to supposedly burn? Isn't it offensive to the memory of the dead? Solve what, that people are allowed to believe what they want to (including offensive things)? The censorship it would require to constrain all of it would be horrific, authoritarian to the nth degree.
The world didn't end because of all the 9/11 conspiracy theories. Thousands of people died in those attacks. Yet the conspiracy theorists proclaimed that a plane never hit the Pentagon, that there were no people on the plane that crashed in PA, that all the Jews stayed home that day, and so on. That doesn't need solving, people will never stop believing and saying crazy things, you can't force it to end.
As longer duration examples, JFK and the moon landing conspiracies persist five decades on, and will never cease to exist. If NASA couldn't solve that with 50 years of education and the extraordinary amount of evidence they've provided, what hope is there for the other items.
At what point do we no longer tolerate their opinions? For example, would you believe it's bad for someone to be censored on HN because they talked about how much they hated black coders? At a certain point we deemed as a society that those sort of views are considered bad. Do you think that was a mistake?
These people literally have fewer rights and we don't consider banning discussion about giving them more/taking more away.
>At what point do we no longer tolerate their opinions? For example, would you believe it's bad for someone to be censored on HN because they talked about how much they hated black coders?
False dichotomy. Nobody has suggested that free speech means that every community has to tolerate these opinions. It just means that people can't be persecuted by the government for expressing them. It's fine to ban racist comments on whatever site you run.
Also you're essentially advocating for the position that we should be allowed to discuss whether or not black people deserve less rights here.
Facebook, Twitter, etc. have block / unfriend options. It's extremely easy to avoid sites like Daily Stormer (or whatever the infamous white supremacist site is called?).
I intentionally don't hang out with racists, bigots, etc. It's the exact same manner of avoidance. You have to do it in real life, I don't see why the same premise wouldn't hold online. Don't spend time in such places, don't invest into such people on social media. You can't force racists to not be racist, you can choose not to associate with them.
> For example, would you believe it's bad for someone to be censored on HN because they talked about how much they hated black coders?
HN isn't a monpolist platform (such that it can heavily restrict information distribution across an entire nation or more), as is the case with Google and Facebook. HN strictly policing its own site in the manner it sees fit, doesn't qualify as censorship, in my opinion. When a monopoly platform does it, it is censorship (because the condition of it being a monopoly means there are limited or no alternatives).
> At a certain point we deemed as a society that those sort of views are considered bad. Do you think that was a mistake?
Not at all. There is widely a societal punishment for such terrible views: you become an outcast in many regards, particularly among the vast majority of people. That society deems such views terrible, does not simultaneously require they be banished / made illegal / censored from all publication (whether books or social media).
That cultural battle should in fact occur out in the open. There is no better platform for it than that. You can't nearly so well combat terrible ideas if they're not expressed.
When it comes to how a monopoly like Facebook should deal with it (in a context where one believes all people have a right to be able to use it): they should delete illegal posts (underage pornography as one example), and they should perhaps restrict blatantly offensive content to adult readers only (18+ in the US), and require an acknowledgement to view it. There are a few directions that Facebook could go with dealing with Alex Jones types for example, that doesn't involve a heavy handed censorship or ban. Limit the mass distribution of their content, as we might in a public square. We don't generally block people from having one to one, or one to few, offensive conversations in a public square, assuming it's discrete. We do generally stop them from mass distribution to all by shouting offensive things through a large audio setup or similar in public squares. It's an effective means of not denying someone access to public squares (eg banning them from Facebook), while still not turning a platform into an open amplification vehicle for terrible, abusive, offensive ideas.
What we're all really talking about here is: should people be censored from being able to offend other people. That central concept is what connects all of these varied speech discussions covering race, religion, sex, gender, political ideology, et al. Should offensiveness be banned? It can't be done, the result of trying to do it is entirely predictable ahead of time. We're seeing countries like Britain attempt it, it's a grotesque absurdity in result. Since what's offensive is inherently subjective and will always vary from one person to the next, it becomes a system of who has power to dictate from moment to moment what's offensive. It becomes a competition of an ever tightening restriction, as each power group adds items to the list (culminating in authoritarianism as freedom of speech essentially entirely disappears). The quest to banish offensiveness ('the right to not be offended'), is a fool's errand at best, and an authoritarian's dream at worst.
Your advice only works when you're not the target - when you just need to walk past and avert your eyes from what's being said to someone else.
Moderation, like many things, has to be taken in moderation.