What's more disturbing is how normalized it's becoming to frame any criticism as hate-speech. That should scare you.
Like using the IRS to target conservatives?
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2013/05/10/irs-...
Then Congressional Republicans turned it into a successful fake news witch hunt against Obama saying he was abusing his power by targeting conservatives.
Read wikipedia for a mostly objective account https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/IRS_targeting_controversy
Over the two years between April 2010 and April 2012, the IRS essentially placed on hold the processing of applications for 501(c)(4) tax-exemption status received from organizations with "Tea Party", "patriots", or "9/12" in their names.
...
While [Inspector General J. Russell George] had many sources confirming the use of "Tea Party" and related criteria described in the report, including employee interviews and e-mails, he found no indication in any of those other materials that "Progressives" was a term used to refer cases for scrutiny for political campaign intervention.[86] The letter further stated that out of the 20 groups applying for tax-exempt status whose names contained "progress" or "progressive", 6 had been chosen for more scrutiny as compared to all of the 292 groups applying for tax-exempt status whose names contained "tea party", "patriot", or "9/12".[85][89][90][91]
You don't actually believe that, do you? Wikipedia is so left-leaning it virtually capsizes.
Are you implying that everything on Wikipedia is correct?
> I'd love to hear it if so.
This implies that you've never read anything negative about Wikipedia. I feel like, if that's the case, you must either have avoided such information, or have just gotten Internet access for the first time. If you would honestly love to hear it, then you could have already found it by using Google.
Please avoid sea-lioning.
Edit: I didn't know what sea-lioning was, so I just looked it up. Asking for sources when someone makes a broad claim doesn't seem to fit the definition.
> So your implication that you can find this "by using Google" immediately makes me think that you haven't actually seen any yourself, but are parroting opinions you've read. I haven't seen any objective analyses of Wikipedia's bias myself, but this isn't something I look for information on, and I suspect they exist somewhere.
Fascinating: you make an unwarranted assumption about me, then accuse me of parroting, and then admit that you yourself have neglected to even attempt the most basic search. You seem to be accusing me of what you have convicted yourself of.
I perceive two definitions of sea-lioning, one of which is attempting to provoke by making demands for sources which meet arbitrary standards. It's typically followed by moving the goalposts until the respondent gives up, after which the sea-lion asserts victory. In other words, it's a form of trolling, not of serious discussion. Given the nature of the argument (whether Wikipedia is biased is necessarily subjective), and the arbitrary standard ("sourced information"), I conclude that it's sea-lioning. You're free to disagree.
I really do understand the annoyance of finding and citing sources for things that you're pretty sure are true based on accumulated experience, but don't have any handy links for - we all have that problem, it's exhausting - but it doesn't mean you can just state your opinions as fact and expect to not be called out on sourcing them. I find the pattern of "go look it up yourself" that you used especially off-putting - you made the claim, you aren't willing to put the work in to cite sources, but you expect me to?
I'm not making a claim one way or another about wikipedia's bias. It isn't a topic that interests me enough to go research it. I only hopped into the thread because you triggered my pet peeve of "here's a claim, now you look it up!". But obviously that is always stupid to do. Edit: that is, hopping into threads you have no investment in is stupid to do.
I'm sorry I accused you of parroting, I couldn't think of a better word.
If your beef with me truly boils down to, "You didn't prepend the words 'I think' to your claim," then I would have to agree that this has been a waste of time. Just because someone uses the word "is" doesn't mean they intend their statement as a fact. This isn't an academic journal, it's the Internet Argument Clinic.
(I really wish the other guy had answered my question of whether he thinks everything on Wikipedia is correct. That's the real issue at stake.)
I would add my anecdotal observations that, whenever I have looked at the edit history and talk pages for anything remotely political, the non-left views are virtually shouted down and literally edited out ad nauseam. The editors by-and-large seem to have a strong left-leaning ideology.
The right has privileges the left doesn't have, too. Unfortunately things aren't fair.
There's more complexity here than you're acknowledging.
Why is this more worrying? Seems less worrying to me if by harassment/attack you mean purely verbal online gabber.
One has people starting mobs against each other while the other has people thinking actions taken against demagogues is of the same vein as government suppression of dissent.
You're more afraid of mobs of people shit talking you than the government arresting you for your opinions if they don't agree with them?
Group 1: I would rather deal with harassment and hate speech than risk erroneously silencing someone I need to hear.
Group 2: I would rather risk silencing someone who's voice ought to be heard than allow someone use speech to hurt another person with harassment or hate.
---
Group 1 isn't trying to promote hate speech or harassment, they're just worried about the potentially malicious intentions of those that want to decide what speech falls under those banners.
Group 2 isn't trying to silence opinions they disagree with, they're just worried that people are getting better at subtly codifying their hate speech in a way that gives them plausible deniability to out-groups but is obviously hateful to the in-group.
I think the important takeaway is that neither 'side' is evil and despite the fact that it causes heated arguments one should maintain respect for those they disagree with.
At one end of the continuum is an individual hanging up the phone when they decide they've heard enough from whoever called them. I think most of us would agree that this doesn't violate the principles of free speech, even if the caller was expressing valid ideas.
At the other end of the continuum is a government imprisoning someone for their speech. I think most of us would agree that this violates the principles (and laws) of free speech, except in certain circumstances (e.g. falsely shouting "fire" in a crowded theatre).
But there are cases in the middle of the continuum where things aren't so clear. If I run a small blog with occasional guest writers, a lot of us would probably agree that I can choose at will which content I publish without violating the principles of free speech.
But what if my blog has millions of viewers? What if it has become more of a "news site" or "forum" than a "blog?" What if it's the largest such site in the world, and the only one with significant market share? Perhaps then many of us would accuse me of violating the principles of free speech, since I have significant power to "silence" certain people or ideas.
I understand libertarianism in many social contexts (e.g. "People who aren't straight are not hurting anyone by not being straight, so there should not be any draconian laws against people for not being straight"), but I can't wrap my head around libertarianism in the context of all these "free-speech" arguments. I feel like I'm missing something, which would make a lot of sense considering how little I have read about libertarianism
Many libertarians believe that if not for government interference, monopolies wouldn't form in the free market. Those people are right in some cases (e.g. payment processing) and wrong in others (e.g. roads). But the dogmatic position asserts that it's true in all cases, and then no corporation would have sufficient coercive power so you only have to worry about the government.
If you take the practical approach and accept that there are always going to be some private monopolies and oligopolies, or even the pragmatic approach that they actually exist today and we have to deal with them today even if the wonder of the free market will eliminate them in the future, then we have to hold sufficiently coercive corporations to the same standards as governments. And at the same time try as hard as we can to destroy their coercive power, so that we can stop needing to do that.
Really, what I'm saying is that there are two ends of the continuum that look pretty obvious and which I suspect the vast majority of people would agree with, but within the continuum things get less clear are offer more room for disagreement.
Perhaps I misread this, but it sounded an awful lot like "are you on the libertarian team?"
I definitely agree that it's not black and white, especially as you delve into the corner cases.
> except in certain circumstances (e.g. falsely shouting "fire" in a crowded theatre).
Considering it originates from suppression of wartime dissent - https://www.popehat.com/2012/09/19/three-generations-of-a-ha...
The problem with almost all of the exceptions on freedom of speech is that they're all meant to be just that, exceptions in the most extreme of cases, and none of them are without controversy and tons of reinterpretation. Handwaving them away with the simplistic "falsely shouting fire in a crowded theater" does not do any of them justice.
To me, having terrible people silenced in your community seems far better of a "drawback" than having marginalized people harassed in your community.
Group 1: I would rather others deal with harassment and hate speech than risk erroneously silencing someone I need to hear.
I honestly think that Group 1 is more often, "I'm fine with the others being harassed, so I'm going to pretend we're talking about criticism or something like that instead of harassment."
I disagree. While group 2 may not intend evil, they are attempting to control others' speech. By their own standard, effect matters, not intent. To exercise control over others against their will is evil. Therefore they are evil.
Their sole principle is that the ends justify the means, which is the equivalent of might-makes-right. By that priniciple, whoever happens to be in power will get away with whatever they want. In other words, opportunistic authoritarianism rather than the rule of law.
As a private company, Twitter is under no obligation to provide anyone with a forum and their terms of service (https://twitter.com/tos and https://support.twitter.com/articles/18311) very clearly exclude that kind of behaviour:
> Harassment: You may not incite or engage in the targeted abuse or harassment of others. > Hateful conduct: You may not promote violence against or directly attack or threaten other people on the basis of race, ethnicity, national origin, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, religious affiliation, age, disability, or disease.
1. Called her an ape, echoing a long history of racist comparisons: https://twitter.com/Lesdoggg/status/755182965060169728 2. Examples at http://www.vox.com/2016/7/20/12226070/milo-yiannopoulus-twit...
Not to defend Milo here (it certainly sounds like he deserved to be banned for harassment), but the tweet in this screenshot doesn't seem to be him? It's from "evyarb9000", and from a quick Google search, Milo's username was "Nero". (He must have grabbed that handle pretty early on...)
ISIS is coherent, effective and well-organised. twitter.com/MADBLACKTWINK/
> We need aspirational role models. We need fantasy. We need the unattainable. We need something to strive for. Fuck feminism.
> Michelle's a tranny, not a queen. Drag queens are fierce, fabulous, ballsy, hilarious & brave. Trannies are insane.
> Liberals: the problem with putting Muslims at the top of your victimhood hierarchy is that THEY WANT TO KILL EVERYONE ELSE ON THE LIST
> Muslims are like the common cold and leftists are like Aids. It's easy to fight off a cold... unless you have Aids. pic.twitter.com/S9amPR1YVa
Etc.