Honest question. For those of you happy that these censorship policies are being implemented by companies in reaction to pressure, do you believe that the ideal end-goal would be 'anti hate speech' laws like those of Germany?
Companies should be free to regulate hate speech on their platforms. The government should not regulate speech in the public domain.
The actions of private companies on private property (virtual or otherwise) are an entirely different domain than government intervention.
Even if you remove the censorship angle, it can be argued that moderating hate speech is simply good business sense. People buying Forza and paying for it don’t want to see this. If it becomes an issue, they lose customers.
While I agree, please direct me to where I can speak "in the public domain" online.
How practical is it in reality to be your own ISP, domain registrar, certificate authority, hosting service, web dev agency, and community moderator all in one?
But it's what the Constitution provides. It guarantees you the right to express your thoughts using your own resources. It does not force others to do it or make it easier for you.
https://www.iflscience.com/technology/free-speech-social-net...
> "When you disagree with someone, posting pictures of your fecal matter in the comment section WILL NOT BE TOLERATED," the first rule states, which is just a fantastic start to any list of rules. A club that has to spell that out (presumably after multiple people broke that rule) is clearly one that needs to be joined. "Your username cannot be CumDumpster," the rules continue, adding that pornography isn't allowed. Sorry, Ted.
Twitter permits all of those things. Some "free speech platform".
If they turn out to be a right wing version of Twitter it would be a shame. We need a platform that could accommodate both left and right wing people so that they can exchange thoughts with each other.
If you actually want to solve the problem of trolls, I think the first step would be to put away the "free speech" platitudes, sit down and figure out what kinds of speech you actually support and what kinds of speech you want to curtail and why.
Regarding your comment about ditching free speech and allowing only what I think is good. It would imply that I know what is good. I do not have such perfect knowledge and I do not believe anyone else has.
Parler claims to be a free speech platform, but their new content policies are stricter - no offensive usernames, no porn, etc.
Perhaps that regulatory regime will return. Maybe even next year. Not under a Republican-led FCC, of course.
Are you arguing that there should be some legal provision that says anyone can publish anything on your website, or newspaper, or ground, and you don't get a say in it? That seems unreasonable.
I'm also glad we finally got to the actual thing you want to see change.
Curious though: what would having this space solve?
Is this a trick question? It guarantees that any marginalized people has access to communicate easily and freely to the general public, and it cannot be denied by anyone.
A government-run, publicly owned online communication platform has several problems that prevent it from being the utopia you expect.
1. What value does it actually provide that Twitter and Reddit and Tumblr (and even Facebook) don't provide? I've learned more about marginalized communities both locally and globally on Twitter than I have anywhere else. Seems that they have a pretty decent platform today.
2. It's existence doesn't mean those platforms go away, so it by itself doesn't stop Facebook from doing the ridiculous things it's doing today. Folks may choose to patronize those private platforms over using the thing you describe.
3. Economically disadvantaged folks won't have access to it without a separate set of programs to ensure every household is connected to the Internet at a reasonable speed, and that they have the tech required to access it. (COVID-19 has laid bare the economic disparity even in my relatively affluent school district.)
4. Are we talking "run by the US"? If so: globally, marginalized people may not be able to communicate there due to policies from our government (which we can over time theoretically control) or their governments (which we cannot.) If not: who runs it then?
5. I think you'll find that the US government routinely denies people speech. Police violently responding to peaceful protests around the country is just one example. The US would definitely have to control for speech that violates US law, such as SESTA/FOSTA.
6. This is all ignoring the fact that people are people, and even the best examples of online communities have examples of folks being rejected by the dominant voices in the community irrespective of the rules.
I think a public-owned online space is fascinating, but I don't think it'd be a magic bullet to solving these problems.
But if we're answering my original parent comment of "where can I speak freely online," we're probably not discussing payment processing.
Actually, the only entities with any capacity of publishing content on the WWW are a few tier 1 ISPs.
If you push that rope you will discover that your capacity to publish anything you want is restricted by the policy of whoever hosts your servers, and their ISP, and their ISP's ISP.
If the end-state of that evolution is every entity being completely free to decide what gets published on their private platform, that's a huge problem.
this is obvious and anyone still unironically pushing the "just make your own" narrative is aware of it but has no other comeback
I posted a comment similar to this, but let me just lay cards on the table: if you want to publish child abuse images, or sell controlled substances, you're probably going to have a hard time finding hosting for that. Same if you want to publish content that violates US copyright law, which I agree with less but still applies.
The original question was "where can I speak 'in the public domain' online," and I'm fairly sure my answer holds.
Unless you were just trying to make some juvenile "any limits placed on my conduct online are invalid because Internet" argument, which I mean good luck with.
Fair enough.
My original parent comment asked where you can speak freely online, which for the purposes of my argument I'm equating to US law regarding free speech. (This may not be the angle you're coming from.)
Most hosts will allow you to publish things that fit that description. To take the examples given in this thread: if you want to publish an image of the Confederate flag, or publish something and not have Twitter or Facebook placing ropes around your content, publishing your own website is going to solve that problem for you.
Now, you're not wrong, there are limits to that, but I'm struggling to find out how those limits apply to this conversation in any realistic way.
But privatizing those laws on the hands of a few companies only work as long as (besides other constraints) there isn't a mob pushing those few companies around. So, I'm completely in favor of letting MS police their platform, but the universal ones ought to be declared public services and there should be guarantees of universalization there.
1 - Not only ISPs, as for example an app store on a locked phone is universal to that phone's userbase.
The internet isnt just SV companies. There's nothing stopping you from creating your own platform that espouses your ideals.
It sounds like a big part of the problem is that we don't have a truly "public" internet, if the backbone of the internet is a bunch of private entities.
We need a truly decentralized internet that doesn't suck like tor currently does.
This argument is always about people complaining that they don't get to participate on the big platforms. But if there was so much demand for people shouting about racist loser shit online there would be a big platform for it. It's their responsibility to build it, not Twitter's
This is exactly what I was talking about here[0]. You don't want a place to post freely to exist because you already have a preconceived idea of what people will say, and you are against that. This kind of attitude is hidden behind so many of the "but you can already do X, kinda" responses I've seen before in these discussions.
Why not just lead by saying you don't think a government maintained platform for free speech should exist because you don't want to hear what people who want it would have to say?
Same place as with pre-online TV and radio I suppose.
Free speech doesn't guarantee you an audience at the time and place of your choosing.
Take public buildings like a Courthouse or City hall, sure you have Free Speech rights, but good luck interrupting a court hearing to get your message out (without being held in contempt by the Judge (the government) and thrown in jail). Or try getting your message out at mid-night when the building is closed.
Then as others have said, what is stopping you from registering your own domain and posting your message there? If the government infringing your rights in that regard?
Where is the online public square? That's the point I am trying to make. And as others have pointed out, if you think having domain name and hosting is a public square, then you are ignoring all of the precedents of those things being removed by private entities.
The Government can restrict you on the street corner too. Take Covid, states/counties/cities/municipalities across the country are enacting curfews, so violate the curfew and they will arrest your chilling your speech...assuming you consider that an edge case as well, then just read the case law from the good old "soap box" days, which deal exactly with people setting up their soap boxes on the corner to talk to the public and yes the government can regulate that speech to a certain extent.
>Are you suggesting that the only way to exchange free speech online is for each passerby to create their own website and respond on their respective websites?
Do you have a website? Can I freely post on your website without your consent?
>Where is the online public square?
The web is the public square, you want to set up your own soap box (website) do it, but you have no right to take over someone else's soap box (website), and if they do give you some rights to stand on their soap box they certainly can place restrictions.
>if you think having domain name and hosting is a public square, then you are ignoring all of the precedents of those things being removed by private entities.
You are ignoring self hosting from private servers.
If the hosting company takes you down, host it yourself. If ICANN takes it down, host it on Tor.
There are always ways to bypass corporate control of speech. You may have to completely forgo the benefits provided by the corporate web sites, but nothing is stopping you from making your own platform.
That's a bit like "if the police beats you up in public, you're still free to speak your mind in your basement" though.
Think of it like going to a coffee shop: they can’t kick you out for being Catholic or male but they can ask you to leave if you are harassing other people, not following public health codes, etc.
As in "you can't speak any more, because your website is offline". A gag is the offline equivalent.
> Think of it like going to a coffee shop
I believe that example would be more accurate if we all lived in company towns, where no public space exists and your presence, and speech, is merely tolerated under normal circumstances, but you have no right to either being there nor speaking your mind, and can be removed at any moment, should anyone "in charge" have an issue with your behavior. That also has the angle that you lose a lot more than just your ability to speak: you lose your home and need to find a new place that will take you in, need to tell everybody you know and do business with about your new address etc, like when Google shuts down your Gmail account.
> As in "you can't speak any more, because your website is offline". A gag is the offline equivalent.
Again, a private company choosing not to use their resources to support your speech is not a gag. You are still free to pick any one of thousands of other options and you are free, even encouraged, read their terms before signing any contract.
Your Gmail comparison is similarly invalid: beyond the extreme rarity of that, when you choose to accept Google’s terms for getting free email service you are, well, accepting their terms. People have chosen for decades to register their own domains to avoid needing to update addresses and outside of uncommon legal situations this will avoid needing to do so.
Right, again, there aren't thousands of other options. If you want to host your site, you need a domain. That limits yourself to a hand full of registrars. And you need somebody to transmit traffic, if you hold any kind of controversial opinion, you need DDOS-protection. That leaves you with another hand full of corporations. Otherwise you're offline, as in, unable to speak.
> People have chosen for decades to register their own domains to avoid needing to update addresses and outside of uncommon legal situations this will avoid needing to do so.
How do you handle email on your domain when the registrar decides to drop your domain? And why shouldn't it, it's a private company, it can do whatever the hell it pleases.
If you want your own domain you can check any company on this list:
https://www.icann.org/registrar-reports/accreditation-qualif...
Similarly, network capacity and servers are available from many companies around the world.
If your content is so toxic that you can’t find anyone in the world to provide even basic network connectivity, it might be time to ask whether you’re using “controversial” as a synonym for “illegal”. That happens to groups like ISIL, but even that’s not completely successful, and it’s extremely unlikely that anyone reading this has “international takedown” as a realistic threat.
Ah, the good old "only criminals have something to hide" aka "all speech that is good is free, if your speech is suppressed, it's probably evil, and evil speech should be suppressed, because it's evil". That's really not a sensible approach imho.
What you are asking for is to force other people to set up platforms for people to speak, which is a very different thing.
Freedom of speech has always applied to the former, but never the latter.
The average person cannot. "Just host your content on Tor" (as it was eventually suggested elsewhere) is not a solution to there being lack of an accessible online public space, when faced with private entities who will deny you hosting and domain names.
But I would like you to answer the question posed in the post you replied to (yes I know it wasn't originally addressed to you). Are you someone who believes that a place like that shouldn't exist because of the content you believe that would be posted?
But I don't think it's accurate to say that most people think these places shouldn't exist. The reality is simply that most people don't want anything to do with it. What you're witnessing is 99% of people collectively saying "not in my backyard", which leaves very little backyard for deeply unpopular views. I think that's an important distinction, even if the results are similar.
For what it's worth, I think a place for unrestricted speech should exist. I am honestly disappointed when I see calls for blanket bans, but I also understand why private platforms don't exactly aspire to bear this weight. These people and their views still exist, and ideally we as a society should confront it.
Besides this presumes something as in "hate speech" exists, let alone that some confederate flag is such speech. It's a not so subtle attempt at creating idea of "words as violence" and promoting arbitrary law enforcement and anarcho tyranny.
all around fake endeavour
And yet, private businesses are subject to certain restrictions. For example, it is illegal to refuse service based on one's race or sex. I am not sure if companies are allowed to discriminate based on one's political views.
Based on this comment, it appears you have a poor understanding of what qualifies as a protected class and what they are protected from. You might want to brush up on that.
So first of all, SCOTUS "avoided ruling broadly on the intersection of anti-discrimination laws and rights to free exercise"[2]. Second of all, you chose to bring this example up and comment on my understanding without having done your due diligence and understanding the issue properly. Oh the irony!
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masterpiece_Cakeshop_v._Colora...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masterpiece_Cakeshop_v._Colora...
Imagine if it were Facebook or Twitter instead of just a video game. You could apply the same logic to say that Facebook is just a private company, and what they allow on their platform doesn't qualify as a curb on free speech. But those two companies effectively form an oligopoly on on-line discussion, and what they allow on their platforms has a huge effect on the country as a whole. Because their policies end up dictating what people are and aren't allowed to say on the internet, their moderation strategies should absolutely be held to a higher standard.
None of this applies to Turn 10, because a racing game is not intended as a platform for discussion, but that's a nuance that needs to be considered. The blanket statement, "private companies should do whatever is good for their business" does not capture that.
Companies have been filtering which words you’re allowed to use as your username, in chats, as your e-mail address. Filtering what kind of pictures you’re allowed to put on your cars is no different than that.
Where does it end?
Gun advocates resist common sense reforms with the same logic, but lots of military weapons (minigun, flamethrower, rocket launcher, etc) are already either banned or highly regulated and have been for years without anyone's rights having been trampled.
https://www.boston25news.com/news/local/boston-art-commissio...
> But Blacks weren’t part of the design process, and the memorial’s central visual takeaway — a Black man kneeling before his white savior — has had people cringing for years.
They paid for it, but didn't get to have input on how it'd look. Seems like the precise sort of thing folks are upset about.
Rushmore was a treaty violation from the very beginning, and Native Americans occupied it as far back as 1971 in protest.
The First Amendment does not protect riots, but it does protect protests outside the White House.
Since then I've come to see the answer "it ends somewhere" as completely void of any value or meaning, and mostly just a justification for mindless erasure. It's not a smart zinger, it's empty.
https://www.wcvb.com/article/boston-art-commission-unanimous...
As far as the others, clearly there is an Overton shift happening here, and that will embolden some advocates to make more extreme demands. Is that bad? Probably not, but I think most statues of Washington are likely safe for at least another generation or two, and if they get moved from the public square into museums at that later point, well, that's something the future will have decided on.
You mean the ones where he's shown as west-european white? I suppose we could bother thinking about why he looks like that in those portrayals when he definitely wouldn't have in real life.
I remember some years ago about a situation regarding a movie. I forget the exact details, but it was something like a Filipino movie about an American disaster, like 9/11. The movie was based on a historically inaccurate story of a Filipino man or family involved in the circumstances, when in reality there had been none. I don't know whether or not the Filipino person was a replacement for a white person's real story.
But as someone much closer to the original circumstances, my perspective is not that I or my community's history has been replaced or been removed due to "racism." It is rather very touching that this foreign community felt close enough and impacted enough by the story to envision themselves inside it, taking part in it. To me, it was an expression of closeness and understanding, not appropriation or racism.
Plus it seems strange to me that in a story where people walk on water and talk to burning bushes and kill gays, that the most offensive or historically inaccurate thing is that some people have envisioned the main character as being similar to them.
I agree! And then they proceeded to spread that image throughout the world (commonly via imperial colonialism) as "god looks like me, not you". That closely aligns with the concept of systemic racism.
> Plus it seems strange to me that ...the most offensive or historically inaccurate thing is...
"Most" is a strawman. We don't need to start assigning gold/silver/bronze medals to badness in order to recognize that it's bad and work to change it.
You skipped the meat of my comment, which is about closeness and understanding.
Thomas Sowell, a black man, had some interesting historical perspectives on these figures in Black Rednecks and White Liberals, which is worth a read. This is just a small excerpt from a google search, and in itself can't directly address everything people are trying to erase, but it's a starter for listening to more and broadening your perspective:
https://www.aei.org/*/thomas-sowell-on-slavery-and-this-fact...
I would imagine that it's possible in some circumstances for this to be true for some, mostly confederate figures. I'm really skeptical that that's true for figures like Washington, Jefferson, and Lincoln.
The weird-power-dynamic-Lincoln statue with the freed black man aside, I generally agree on statutes of the founding fathers. I doubt a statue of Washington was erected in honor of his support for slavery.
In the greater context of what is happening in America right now, tearing down statues of Washington isn't necessarily about Washington himself. Instead, it is about challenging the idea that our historical figures (and America itself) are infallible.
If I may paint a picture, put yourself in the shoes of a black man in America in 2020. You see thousands of videos of police brutality, blatant racism, and disregard from those in power. A significant portion of the representatives in this country refuse to outright state that racism is still a problem in this country, but you see it with your very eyes every day.
However, you see these statues symbolizing this "ideal" version of America, where everyone is equal, which never actually existed. Further, when people challenge the existence of these statues (and by proxy, that non-existent "ideal") in the face of all of this inequity, they are defended orders of magnitude more intensely than the rights of actual-flesh-and-blood people. It's hard to look at a statue of General Lee, or even Washington, and see anything but a symbol of the fact that America at large cares more about the "appearance" of equality and equity than actually granting it to the people. If the people who defending these statues so vigorously also defended the civil rights of their fellow Americans with the same energy, I don't think we would see as much of a struggle over this.
As for blacks in America today, it's complicated to discuss and I'm not sure I have the wherewithal to go down all the paths. I think to some degree your picture is based on the news and what is visible, rather than what we know people actually think. Does BLM/the mob speak for all blacks? Are there any who dissent, on either the history, today's context, the solutions, or all three? Yes, definitely. And if opinions vary, should we not attempt to understand whether or not there is a right or wrong, and proceed according to rightness? If it is not about right or wrong, but the perception of offense, what does that mean? If a symbol stands for something good, and one person out of a million falsely perceives it to be a hate symbol, is that sufficient for a teardown? What if it were 10% or 50%? Is it just a matter of threshold? Do we even know the percentages today for what's happening before we let the mob do its thing?
I think a lot of people are smart enough to know that there is a difference between representing "an ideal version of America," and specific ideals that individuals represented. Washington for example largely representing the fight for independence; Roosevelt standing for social justice; Lincoln for freedom and equality - not American utopia.
When considering people as symbols it is important to isolate what they did that made them stand out from their time, from their common beliefs or actions that were the same as everyone else. Without doing that, we expose symbols to the injustice of being judged by modern moral standards, and sacrifice the good that we isolated. Like it or not, the acceptance of slavery was not exceptional in Washington's time. The ability and bravery to lead a revolution certainly were exceptional. The exceptional is what we isolate and create a symbol from.
It is of course possible to have been exceptionally cruel within the time of American slavery, which would be a reason to not symbolize someone. But that isn't the case for these figures and in fact Washington eventually came to flip his perspective on slavery in his lifetime.
The morality of the past is fixed and the morality of the future is in perpetual development, meaning that if we continue to take the same approach that's happening now, all symbols will eventually be lost in time, because with an unbound future we will likely run the gamut of what is considered right and what is considered wrong in any given "now." By keeping this up, we deprive ourselves of a story and a guideline of history to help us project our own future. We sacrifice timeless positive principles to shifting moral discoveries. We leave our children with less guidance.
Can't put in any more - you get the last word!
There are mainstream politicians and political commentators who explicitly say that racism used to be a big problem in the United States but that it simply does not exist any more. I suspect it's a very common belief.
Five seconds of googling yielded several results from when this was last discussed in a major way, in 2017:
NPR piece includes a chart of dates for confederacy iconography: https://www.npr.org/2017/08/20/544266880/confederate-statues...
HuffPo piece says it was never about "history and culture": https://www.huffpost.com/entry/confederate-monuments-history...
Vox talks a bit about the process:
"But the story of the monuments is even stranger than many people realize. Few if any of the monuments went through any of the approval procedures that we now commonly apply to public art. Typically, groups like the United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC), which claimed to represent local community sentiment (whether they did or did not), funded, erected, and dedicated the monuments. As a consequence, contemporaries, especially African Americans, who objected to the erection of monuments had no realistic opportunity to voice their opposition."
See: https://www.vox.com/the-big-idea/2017/8/18/16165160/confeder...
And then some newer pieces:
https://www.history.com/news/how-the-u-s-got-so-many-confede...
https://www.wral.com/confederate-monuments-were-meant-to-int...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_display_of_the_Confeder...
This is the gist of democracy. You don't get bonus points for historical relevance. You may not agree with the angry mobs of protestors, but the same change is happening in formal government, albeit slower.
You could say then that these specific idols are not good idols because of the realities of their actions in the past. But there are other perspectives [0] that should be considered before taking that as a foregone conclusion - a conclusion mostly adopted from peers and not study.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2020/06/19/destroying...
It feels tired to still be repeating this when so many others have said it, but Germany is capable of learning about Hitler and Nazism without the monuments glorifying it; Americans can learn about Robert E. Lee without the whitewashed monuments everywhere. And anyway, there was none of this clutching of pearls about history-erasure when the Saddam Hussein statue was toppled in Baghdad in 2003.
I think that framing minimizes the extent to which we can and do choose how we portray history in order to choose how we see ourselves.
Part of doing this well is being able to isolate properly, identifying what made historical figures exceptional, and being able to forgive sins which are considered sinful now, but were common behavior in the past. If you can't do that, you can't preserve people as symbols of principles at all, because the morality of the moment is not guaranteed to be held forever.
The AHA has specifically put out a statement[0] about monuments. The prime quote:
> To remove a monument, or to change the name of a school or street, is not to erase history, but rather to alter or call attention to a previous interpretation of history.
Thucydides, arguably the very first historian ever, criticized statues and monuments as poor representations of history. It is important to understand the difference between history and historical memory. Monuments are not pedagogy tools. Actual professional historians do not see them as relevant for teaching us about the people they represent.
[0] https://www.historians.org/news-and-advocacy/aha-advocacy/ah...
Slippery slopes have varying levels of steepness.
https://techcrunch.com/2020/06/19/germany-tightens-online-ha...
I don't have an opinion on this as it's way too fresh to have observed the effects of it and render a judgment; just here to provide context.
The UK's Communications Act 2003 section 127 also says:
> (1) A person is guilty of an offence if he-
> (a) sends by means of a public electronic communications network a message or other matter that is grossly offensive or of an indecent, obscene or menacing character; or
> (b) causes any such message or matter to be so sent.
> (2) A person is guilty of an offence if, for the purpose of causing annoyance, inconvenience or needless anxiety to another, he-
> (a) sends by means of a public electronic communications network, a message that he knows to be false,
> (b) causes such a message to be sent; or
> (c) persistently makes use of a public electronic communications network.
> On 19 December 2012, to strike a balance between freedom of speech and criminality, the Director of Public Prosecutions issued interim guidelines, clarifying when social messaging is eligible for criminal prosecution under UK law. Only communications that are credible threats of violence, harassment, or stalking (such as aggressive Internet trolling) which specifically targets an individual or individuals, or breaches a court order designed to protect someone (such as those protecting the identity of a victim of a sexual offence) will be prosecuted.
Implying they already expect to reevaluate this decision?
While this statement sounds reasonable at face value, these kind of important distinctions really need to be codified in law, not left up to prosecutorial discretion. Vague speech laws plus a great degree of prosecutorial discretion is exactly how a lot of brutal regimes oppress dissenters while justifying their actions.
Sure, but it's also how a lot of non-brutal regimes keep laws from growing out of control with silly edge cases.
If you are harassing someone, law enforcement doesn't have to consult the legislated list of 23,784 actions that constitute harassment. That seems reasonable.
The clarification that you just quoted above from the Director of Public Prosecutions is only one sentence in length but it would entirely change the meaning of the law, if a clarification like that were actually in it.
US harassment laws are not a list of 23,784 actions that constitute harassment either. Here's an example of one state's law. It is clear and specific, something all laws should be: https://definitions.uslegal.com/h/harassment/
You might be interested in this programme (from 2013, so there have been some changes since then) that explains how it works: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01sn9cf
I'm 100% fine with slipping that far down the slope.
I'm British, here, almost all good humour is targeting/focusing around some group in some way (e.g. Monty Python, Fawlty Towers). We call it black comedy because it's horrible out of context.
So, are you in favour of getting rid of comedy?
Or does your rule only apply when the little guy does something offensive?
Correct. I'm in favor of certain restrictions on speech; I think Germany's bans on Nazi slogans and symbols are a good model.
I draw a distinction between "I trained a dog to make Nazi salutes" and comedy routines, yes. It appears the UK does as well.
Also, the UK has free speech, just not on online platforms and I'd like to see that distinction ended.
I don't agree with that bare assertion.
I subscribe to the belief that unlimited tolerance leaves societies open to malicious actors. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance
Edit: On my "derived from free speech" remark - I believe that's the case because freedom of speech is how we keep the government in check. The minute they can decide Nazi imagery is unacceptable, they have legal standing to do the exact same to whichever political party or marginalised group they dislike. Too dangerous imo.
Everyone has a gun? Rational people are theoretically less likely to try and piss people off, because they know everyone is carrying.
It's super-easy to sue people for hate speech? Rational people are theoretically much more likely to consider their words, because they know everyone can get their ass fined and possibly imprisoned.
(The obvious problems are of course that not everyone is a perfect rational being with no emotions or extenuating circumstances, and that there are people who will immediately start trying to game any system for profit - goading someone into doing something that gives you an excuse to punish them for Bad Behavior, whether via the gun in your pocket or the State's justice, is an old, old tactic.)
Hate speech isn't well-defined though. It seems to just be a du jour list of things that upset people too much. What about a picture of a famous slave ship?
Then maybe you are not looking hard enough and are unaware of the realities in Europe? Some examples:
1. UK libel regime failing abuse victims: https://www.ibanet.org/Article/NewDetail.aspx?ArticleUid=075...
2. Search for "Notes from the Field: EU Defamation Laws and Journalism", where the International Press Institute (IPI) "takes a closer look at the application of defamation law in EU countries, seeking to illustrate the practical consequences of these laws upon both individual journalists and the free flow of information necessary for democratic governance."
We get to pick each time. "Well, we banned the confederate flag, better prevent white people from listening to rap" isn't the sort of thing that happens. Each adjustment to social norms is an independent choice that our society gets to make.
Is this a hate symbol?
If it is and it gets banned, will you also consider whatever other symbol gets co-opted?
I disagree.
>Is this a hate symbol?
I believe so.
>will you also consider whatever other symbol gets co-opted?
Yes, if it does get co-opted to the extent of replacing its original meaning. Luckily that only happens rarely. That's just how symbols and communication work - it's an unfortunate and unavoidable reality. The swastika is the most obvious example.
You asked how it works, that's how it works
The premise is that maximalist tolerance means tolerating intolerant ideas, and that there's a risk that a movement of intolerance can form which destroys the culture of tolerance. It suggests that rational discourse might not always lead us away from intolerant views, and maximalist tolerance could therefore be self-defeating.
You have to decide what's worth tolerating. You can't just say "can't we all be nice to each other" when there are people trying to celebrate an icon of slavery and white nationalism.
Where does this conclusion come from that rationality is so weak and our tolerant views are on such shaky ground that we have to prevent people from expressing intolerance?
So I'm not really sure what your point is. You seem to be trying to make a reductio ad absurdum, but it doesn't seem absurd to me for a community to be upset about a public statue of Che Guevara and demand it be removed.
Still, though, it's important to recognize the wholesome impulse to celebrate the South, as it is a distinct region with its own valuable culture. A few years back there was an attempt to replace the Stars and Bars with a new "Southern Pride" flag [1]. Predictably, it's bland garbage.
Just as someone proud of being German has a wide variety of symbols they can use other than a swastika, someone proud of their Southern ancestry could pick almost anything else to express that. Choosing a symbol which racists have proudly used to intimidate others for a century in a half immediately calls motives into question and even if someone somehow managed to avoid learning the history until now the only polite response is “I had no idea. I’ll use something else!”
It seems to me that there are already plenty of laws that breach the 1st amendment if you interpret speech as absolutely any speech (e.g. death threats, libel, ...). And it is constitutional because the current interpretation of speech is narrower than "everything".
Doesn't that mean that, if there were the will to do it, free speech could be reinterpreted (by the supreme court?) to not include hate speech, thus not requiring to change the 1st amendment?
If there really was the will to do it, it would be by passing a constitutional amendment. If you aren't familiar, there is a process by which the constitution can be modified, and this can be done to completely rewrite or contradict the current text. But it's a very difficult hurdle: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_amendments_to_the_Unit...
Which makes me think they don't really know what freedom of speech is.
In some places, you can be prevented from saying something that others do not want you to say.
Freedom of speech doesn't mean that there's nobody physically preventing you from talking.
For example: If you bad mouth a friend, they might no longer be your friend. This isn't a punishment for your actions or a restriction of your freedom.
Will they also ban anyone who posts and Hindu swastika? Or the face of Che Guevara? Or anything related to ancient Rome? Or anything related to the Ottomans? And I could keep going and going and going.
I agree that is wrong, but I disagree on the grounds of contract law, not speech rights. I do think MS is well within their rights to prevent you from playing their game for any reason they want (other than membership in a protected class), but they should refund your money.
So the punishment should instead fall on...other people? Because that's exactly what the sort of "free speech" you are advocating it - a restriction on other people's own freedom of speech and association.
Not really. The consequences in some places are just so severe that it might be one of the last things you say.
Everybody is a huge fan until those laws turn against them.
A step in the process? Maybe. I don't know if this kind of legal enforcement is the shortest route from here to there in the US. I could be convinced either way.
Whether the goal of these censorship policies in other countries / companies, is something that should probably be determined on a case-by-case basis. Generally your question brings to mind 2 more questions I would ask you in turn for elaboration:
1) Do you think there should be a line drawn anywhere to say that this is the absolute limit of free speech? E.g. being able to say that some people are less valuable as human beings arguably brings little value any discussion. 2) Do you believe that symbols may change overtime to represent ideas that perhaps do not relate as much to their original meaning as a symbol? I'm talking about the confederate flag here. Granted, I'm not a US citizen, but I do not understand want possible purpose the confederate flag could serve in today's age, other than as an acknowledgement of antiquated values and ideas no longer endorsed by today's culture? Maybe 20, 30 years ago, not as many people really cared whether the confederate flag had anything to do with racism or slavery. But now, its meaning is arguably more hostile, just due to the way it is used as a counter to the BLM movement and other related anti-racism movements.
So, why would some one honestly use the confederate flag as a artistic symbol in this way today? Just as no-one would use the SS lightning bolt as an icon or symbol in Europe and expect to not get a reaction from people. In these cases, I would argue that doing is more an act of ignorance than it is an act of freedom of speech.
Disclaimer: I am a EU resident in Germany who knows next to nothing about censorship law in this country - this is my humble and probably misinformed opinion. Any knowledgeable Germans please feel free to correct my interpretation.
And the Confederate Battle Flag and Nazi Flag absolutely do advocate the for murder and enslavement of people.
obligatory mention every time this gets brought up: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18917746
> "Dabei reicht dann auch schon, dass man als Gleichgesinnter auftritt und solche Inhalte teilt oder mit einem "Gefällt mir" versieht"
https://www.pcgameshardware.de/Internet-Thema-34041/News/Bun...