Comment by khawkins | Hacker News Reader

Comment by khawkins | Hacker News Reader

>The dangers of this approach soon became apparent. Facebook now has some three billion users—more than a third of humanity—many of whom get their news from the site. In 2016, Russian agents used the platform in an attempt to sway the U.S. Presidential election. Three years later, a white supremacist in New Zealand live-streamed a mass shooting. Millions of people joined groups and followed pages related to QAnon, a conspiracy theory holding that the world is controlled by a cabal of Satan-worshipping, pedophilic Democrats. The First Amendment has made it difficult for the U.S. government to stop toxic ideas from spreading online.

The idea that these things can be stopped by censoring "toxic ideas" is the false premise that both the New Yorker and Facebook state as their primary justification for expanding their power. They miss the point of the 1st amendment entirely, and hint at it being an inconvenience to progress instead of a cherished human right. They act like the demands of censors to remove speech deserve equal consideration to those who want their speech rights preserved. But the idea that free speech is a human right doesn't mean we stop at first ammendment protections from government censorship, it should be extended in sentiment to any position of power. The idea that either the author or the company is treating the censorship of a world leader supported by over 70 million people as something that should be debated by "high-minded" people suggests that they have already abandoned the concept of free speech as a human right.

Free speech is important in part because, to the contrary, it cools extremism. When elites stamp out speech, they don't eliminate the ideas, they make those individuals more desperate and disillusioned with society. They hamper the abilities of like-minded communities to deescalate radicalism. They remove the ability of radicals to vent, where they can feel like they're making a difference with words instead of violence.

It's deeply disturbing to see that the people living in New York and California, especially those in power, seem to have less of an appreciation for the principle of free speech than those abroad. I think the time where America was a world bastion for free speech is over. Only thing in their way is that pesky 1st amendment.

My country arrests and charges people for making offensive tweets. If America abandons free speech, then where is left to go?

The US has cavalierly destroyed centuries of Free Speech heritage in a matter of just weeks.

This current time in which we live will be written into history as a watershed moment, only recognized after it has come and gone.

It deeply saddens me. We have lost a great light of liberty in the earth.

Wait, did the US spend the last few weeks burning all the copies of John Stewart Mill or something?

Cavalierly destroyed centuries of heritage? Come on.

You've presented no argument here, just an unwillingness to engage with the problem until correcting course is impossible.

The parent presented nothing other than hyperbole. What argument would convince them? Should I point to all the libraries that still stand? Even if the internet as a whole disappeared (not just their preferred platforms) we'd be in a better position re: access to speech and publishing than we have been for most of history. Hyperbolic claims like the parent's don't deserve an argument, they deserve to be laughed at.

Besides, this whole thread once again misunderstands "free speech" as some absolute natural law. But even at the founding of the country the authors of the 1st Amendment viewed it as a restraint on the federal government and no one else. Including state governments, much less private actors.

Banishing certain speech to less accessible realms is, in principle, the same as book burning.

"It's not about eliminating ideas from history," the censor explains, "it's about protecting the simple minds of the masses from ideas they can't be responsible with. The ideas are there in the dusty library for them to ponder in quiet consideration. They may even allowed to discuss in secret, hushed behind closed doors. Possibly even publish them if they can find a publisher willing to attach themselves to such vile print. But they just cannot be allowed to spread in public. The internet is too powerful a tool for spreading the lies and hate of the simple-minded, and the masses are too gullible. In order to protect democracy, we must protect the fragile minds of the voters, lest our enlightened and compassionate ideas are challenged."

Except everyone is still publishing. On the internet, even! And talking on television channels with an audience of millions. You can't point to a single individual who is unable to publish their ideas online merely because their ideas are unpopular.

The pre-internet equivalent of your argument is that if the New York Times refused to run something on the front page, it was being censored. Now that a company can access 2.8 billion people, you're suggesting that it must put whatever anyone wants front and center. But there is no credible argument that every claim is equally entitled to the most accessible and popular platform, which is why you made up a parable instead.

But: anyone is still free to challenge our enlightened and compassionate ideas, and those challenges can still spread in public, online. They are not relegated to dusty libraries. You can send a link to your friend from whatever website you want. You can buy servers and use them to express any idea you choose. You just don't get to use Zuckerberg's and Bezos's hardware to do it.

It's very unclear which events you mean. Could you be more explicit, to further actual discussion? The only big issue in the news that seems even slightly related to free speech is incitement to insurrection, which has been an exception for a very long time. Is there some change in attitudes or policies that you'd like to cite?

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