It’s incredible that supporting free speech is considered to be only important enough to the “far right” now to be worth marketing to.
Free speech used to be something all Americans supported and defended.
I signed up on Gab recently to see what people were talking about on there, and the discussion is far less diverse than Twitter (there's just no comparison). Twitter has X, Y, and Z Twitter, whereas Gab basically seems to be just Q Twitter these days.
And on Gab, you'll get shouted down within milliseconds if you post something that doesn't fit the general vibe, and you'll probably be called a f#g for your trouble. (I've seen the same thing on so-called "patriot" live streams that also claim free speech absolutism but then ban you for saying anything they don't want to hear, even good-faith efforts to explain the motivations of the "other side.")
Therefore, I can confidently claim that Twitter, just as an example, cares more about and does far more to promote free speech than Gab ever could or will, even though they don't use "free speech" as a marketing cudgel.
Gab being Q twitter is probably related to this: https://twitter.com/beeeeeers/status/1358141547057848320
That said, mostly any platform that allows some kind of speech banned on mainstream platforms will initially turn into a hive of said banned content for completely obvious reasons.
> I've seen the same thing on so-called "patriot" live streams that also claim free speech absolutism but then ban you for saying anything they don't want to hear, even good-faith efforts to explain the motivations of the "other side."
This does sound sad. I've found a few places online where there are people of all manner of creeds and they're some of the best places. They usually don't contain wokelets or rabid Q people, which probably explains why they remain nice and interesting.
> Free speech used to be something all Americans supported and defended.
It's not that most Americans don't care about free speech. It's that most Americans understand that constitutional free speech means the government can't infringe on your speech, except in limited circumstances (like extortion, inciting violence, inciting panic, divulging classified material, etc).
The reason companies like Gab and Parler market 'free speech' to the far right, is because the far right often engages in trolling, harassment, incitement to violence, disinformation, and bigotry in social media. As such, they run into the moderation policies of those platforms and at some point start running into bans. Not to say other parts of the political spectrum don't run into moderation and bans too, but it's a bigger problem right now for the far right.
There's a debate to be had about the power social media giants have over public discourse and whether internet service providers should be able to blacklist companies like they did to Parler. But that still doesn't fall under the umbrella of constitutional free speech. Businesses usually have wide latitude to refuse service to customers, particularly for toxic behavior.
It happens to have a constitutional instantiation. That instantiation happens to be expressed as a restriction on the government's chartered power; this is an artifact of the process by which it was drafted, i.e. as part of a collection of proposed restraints on the powers federal government.
No reasonable person should confuse the very limited constitutional guarantee given to free speech with the norm itself.
It's only now that social media has come along and has democratized publication of text, images, and video that free speech as it relates to private businesses is becoming an issue. Maybe in the future a majority of people will decide that social media is the proverbial public square and change the law to reflect that. But the prevailing paradigm to this point has been that a company has a right (and some responsibilities) to make rules about what people post on their platform.
- Was the "free speech" norm ever widely followed? This is the one I think you're objecting to, and indeed society as a whole has never exactly been accepting of all speech. On the other hand, there are plenty of social norms that people generally believe in but frequently don't quite live up to, like presumption of innocence, or "honour your father and your mother". I don't really think this criterion invalidates conduct prescriptions as social norms.
- Was the "free speech" ideal ever widely accepted? This one seems kind of tricky if you just look at the current state of affairs, but then if you look just a few years back at the way people danced around the "hate speech dilemma" even up through 2016, I think it's pretty clear that people generally did, or at least expected others to, accept free speech as an ideal.
- What kind of social obligation is the "free speech" rule conceived as? And this is one I wanted to make a point on, specifically that the constitutional instantiation of it is not primary.
It is not the understanding that, given that the constitutional guarantee exists, there is only a restriction on Congress and e.g. everything is all peachy with a president instructing the IRS to engage in punitive auditing against Vietnam War dissidents.
It is dangerously disingenuous to frame the constitutional protection on freedom of speech as the full extent of Americans' understanding of free speech.
Discourse within the "acceptable" range has been true free speech certainly, but step outside those boundaries and throughout US history there have been serious repercussions. Common law courts have long recognized that if you walk up to someone on the street and scream obscenities at them you have no recourse when you get punched in the face - the concept of "fighting words". Even today no one bats an eye when a restaurant doesn't allow a patron to dine there when they don't meet the restaurant's arbitrary dress code or if the patron has an "offensive" t-shirt slogan. Various forms of ostracism have been used against people speaking out against what is acceptable since human society has existed.
State Governments have punished speech they don't as well. For example in the South pre-Civil War many southern states made it illegal to publish anti-slavery books, newspaper articles, and speeches. You could literally be arrested for speaking against slavery in any form.
I think the actual social norm you're talking about is acceptance of conservative political discourse and opinion. Certain kinds of political discourse have been verboten in the US (eg people were fired and blacklisted for communism) so that's not new as a concept, but this is the first time in US history there is strong pushback against conservatism.
To some degree I see this social pressure as being weaponized because so much of the US is gerrymandered and tiled in the favor of conservatives*. Despite being a minority party Republicans control a majority of state legislatures. CA gets two senators. A group of 11 rural conservative states representing the same population gets 22 senators. When a rump party that represents a strict minority of the population gets to continuously impose its will, change voting rules, pack the Supreme Court, and so forth are you truly surprised when a lot of people get angry? When some people are no longer willing to be polite about politics?
When the normal relief valve - elections having consequences - gets subverted for decades that pressure must find relief somewhere.
The pressure is even more intense now that the major conservative party in the US is openly embracing nationalism and at least some are openly advocating for ending democracy: whether you agree with it or not the Republican party has declared war on the majority of the US population. Some people are going to see that as an existential threat and respond accordingly.
* I know the pedants will want to divert discussion to how the US is arranged into separate states deliberately, federalism, etc. I am well aware of those arguments, there is no need to re-hash them. Much like calling universal healthcare and worker protections "socialism", or trying to fine/punish people and take down their video clips due to "copyright claims" all you are doing is teaching the upcoming generations that socialism is better at solving problems, copyright should be abolished, and federalism sucks. Proceed at your own peril.
Why do people who espouse free speech want to take away freedom to choose who one associates with?
The US already limit companies "Right of Association" by virtue of things like Providers of Last Resort (that's the extent of my knowledge on this topic in the context of America) so it's not an alien concept.
Do you feel that the electricity company should be able to cut off your power supply because you made a blog post they don't agree with? How about your mobile phone provider? And if not, why are online services treated any differently?
These platforms are being used by white nationalists and other extremists to normalize their hateful ideology and encourage violence against anyone with different gender orientations, nationality, ethnicity, or religious beliefs.
Gab and Parler have zero interest in free speech as a human right. They want unlimited free speech for acceptable groups (mostly white straight Christians) and no rights for anyone else.
Users on those platforms have posted their intent to hurt and kill others, that content was never moderated, and those users carried out acts of violence. Companies who don't want to be associated with that have disconnected their services ahead of the inevitable legal action to shut the services down.
Literally no one in the US has had their electricity or phone cut off because of a "disagreeable blog post." It's a ridiculous example to bring up in the sea of information about what's going on in those forums.
But why do should people be forced to associate with neonazis against their will? Expressing neonazi and white nationalist propaganda does not make one a a protected class so businesses are free to refuse to provide them service. Does McDonald’s have the right to refuse service to cater a klan rally?
I'm not actually sure where I stand on the issue in it's totality, I try to prevent myself from giving a knee-jerk response simply because the example being used is emotionally inflammatory. I do feel it's more a gradient than a binary issue though.
Edit: Upon re-reading, I misinterpreted this question sorry. The example you supplied might be as apt, but it's just one end of the spectrum. I also can't help but feel that it's like comparing my local Cafe (Switch Cafe in New Brighton, if you're interested) to McDonalds and calling it a free-market success story.
> But why do should people be forced to associate with neonazis against their will?
Why should a company - which is not a person, and something I think is being overlooked in this discussion - be forced to associate with anyone against their will? As I previously mentioned, there are several industries that can't refuse their service and there are several classes to which no industry may refuse their service. If we are looking for justification, I suggest we use the same logic applied in those cases.
> Does McDonald’s have the right to refuse service to cater a klan rally?
Obviously. I'm not sure where this is leading though, so I'll wait before commenting further.
While the ideology is terrible, hateful, close minded, harmful, etc, we tolerate their right to speech because no one knows when you might be the next “Neo Nazi”. A flick of the switch politically, and TPTB might find that LGBT speech is hateful. Perhaps people new to the tech industry don’t remember a time when being a computer nerd was anti-social, and clashed with the norms of society. Sure there are consequences to this ideology. People can get hurt and people’s lives can be impacted. But that is the price to live in a free society. Speaking to your last question, I think McDonalds should absolutely have the right to refuse service to a Klan member. But if I was in charge of McDonalds I would serve them. Because IMHO the outcome of a society where speech is no longer free, either by corporate cancel culture or government regulation, is not a society I want to live in.
And that “perhaps people new to...etc” is a nice backhanded appeal to authority and it falls flat.
Edit: hacker news has rigorously enforced comment guidelines, why is that okay? Why is it not bad per what you say: > “ Because IMHO the outcome of a society where speech is no longer free, either by corporate cancel culture or government regulation, is not a society I want to live in.”
Ultimately, as a business owner, it’s not my (our?) job to direct culture. In fact it is kind of disturbing someone with enough money could change society to their whims. I’m here to create value for myself and the people around me. Political crusades are best left outside the professional/corporate environment.
Once you have that epiphany you can see that creating value for yourself and the people around you is a form of directing culture and vice-versa.
You don't need to actually own a platform to leverage it for your side in a culture war, you only need to know how to exploit it. If you want your platform to be neutral, you need to monitor and moderate it carefully: if you don't choose what culture permeates your platform, others will be glad to choose for you, and I think it's foolish to think it'll be any better.
It could also mean that nazis like your bar.
I've seen this argument get politicized too much to the point of it being emotional. Like your nazi reference.
Social platforms should be moderated according to law. Whatever users legally & lawfully discuss in your platforms should not restricted. And this kind of applying pressure towards platforms worries me. They are merely tools. Let the law deal with this issue and leave free speech alone.
Imagine if email providers were not allowed to filter. Your email would be totally unusable.
Enacting no filters beyond what's illegal would make most of the internet unusable. Like imagine if HN had no moderation? It would lose its original purpose.
So what do you mean support free speech exactly? Allow people to freely post porn, scams, lies, death threats?
If, by chance, they're anything like me, then I agree that there's giant categories of prohibited speech that should remain so. Lying about medicine, slander, libel, incitement to violence to name a few.
I have a suspicion that there might be a communication barrier somewhere between you and your friends. I'm a bit out on a limb here, so forgive my presumptions if they're off base. I mean no offense.
It's possible that your friends have learned that, when talking to you, 'free speech' is only worth defending when it's offensive, neo-nazi style speech. Then, without making explicit the change in vocabulary usage, they run with it -- ending up in a bad spot where they're saying get rid of 1st Amendment. There's no winners in this story, just unfortunate misunderstandings.
Again, disregard if this is nonsense. I've been witness to similar disagreements in the past, so I'm offering my 2c since I think you're making the good faith effort to represent, even while exasperated, the views of your friends.
Speaking of finding common ground, I thought the recent GME schenanigans were notable in that folk on both extremes of the political spectrum seemed to agree that it was fun "sticking it to the man". Was anyone here not cheering the "irrational" retail traders on?
Sorry, did I misunderstand you?
If you really intended to be genuine in your desire to find common ground with folk of differing political views from your own, I once again invite you to share your personal beliefs on the topic of societal damage caused by data breaches, or your thoughts on the recent GME stock market manipulation.
Are you willing to accept the challenge of accepting the rules of engagement I put forth - Acknowledge that neo-nazis are a problem, briefly state why?
---
I think the GME stuff is a bit nuts, personally. I found the whole thing entertaining, but I find it hard to believe that most participants won't be hurt in some way in the long run. I'm not sure how much small time investors understand that. Optimistically, maybe this is a collective learning experience that does minimal harm to a large number of people, and we all come away from the experience with a better idea of how the stock market works. Maybe then we can make better informed electoral decisions? Feels a bit too optimistic, but hey.
Better than meme stocks vs hedge funds, imo, would be to have a working system for accountability and enforcement at the SEC- been lacking for decades, from what I understand.
-------
Societal damage caused by data breaches. Idk, it's a bit large as a topic. Do I like that a bunch of personal data just got dumped? Not the biggest fan, no. I wouldn't want it to happen to me, certainly.
I do think it's useful to have the data there to show how much the platform is for hate and organizing around hate. It seems like there should be a better way to expose this kind of thing.
----
I'd be surprised if you also engage in a genuine discussion on your own terms.
I love surprises, but I've been on the internet long enough not to expect them.
I think for a proper useful evaluation, we equally need to see a similar full dump from other platforms like Facebook, Twitter etc. who are the standard when it comes to social media.
I am personally not too convinced the content is that different, but rather some platforms just have more diverse political allegiances.
The full history would also tell us if these ideas were more common when they're smaller network but when they grow they aren't etc.
The other thing we need to evaluate is if these platforms are just made of people banned from primary platforms and if that's the case, are these platforms really responsible for the surge of these types of people and perhaps what is a way to fix these societal issues as they continue to exist rather than disappear?
Gab and Parler have moderators too too, but the content they moderate is a lot more refined. I suspect proportionally, they're actually more to a per user ratio than FB or Twitter.
An equivalent prompt for discussion on the topic of neo-naziism would perhaps be, "I believe that neo-naziism is a problem. Do you agree with me? Why or why not?" I'll happily respond to that.
I think neo-naziism is one of the many appalling and terrible extremist ideologies that exist in the world, and people that willingly engage in it are bad people. In the general sense, it's certainly a problem; the world would be a better place if neo-nazis didn't exist. Within the context of politics in the United States, it's hard to say that it's a genuine problem. I'm an American, and I don't know of anyone within any degree of separation that would be fairly considered a neo-nazi, or is afflicted by neo-naziism. I live on the coast, though, and so may be in a bubble that's out of touch with other parts of the country. From my point of view, I think the problem is more that neo-naziism is a label that has been weaponized by the political left to rally their base against the political right. It seems comparable to the political right labeling their opponents as similarly nasty things to rally their base against the political left. I think it's about as likely that neo-naziism is a widespread concern within the political right as much as it is likely that the political left has a problem with child eating demon worshippers. It all seems like nonsense that doesn't match reality.
I agree with you on GME that it's unfortunate if anyone created a financial hardship for themselves by investing when they didn't understand the situation. I also agree that government oversight that actually functions effectively within its purpose would be way better than what we have now. I'm curious what your thoughts are on cryptocurrencies like bitcoin? I personally hate them, mainly for the environmental waste that proof-of-work algorithms create, but also for the blatant disregard for the majority of the world population's traditionally accumulated wealth.
For reference: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politic...
The FBI disagrees with you quite a bit on whether neo-nazis & co are a problem.
This is why I insist so much. This is why so many on the left insist so much on this particular test. Pretending the problem isn't a problem is a thing that is actively causing harm to the country.
The truly bizarre thing about the "woke" movement is that they seem to have absolutely no conception that the stuff they're doing to others can just as easily be done to them.
You might be surprised at how fast this kind of thing can turn around.
https://www.amazon.com/True-Believer-Thoughts-Movements-Pere...
Edit: more recommended reading:
I doubt Paul graham equates neonazi propaganda with his examples of past situations where you could believe something that was later thought of as very wrong: “ how can you be sure you wouldn't also have believed everything you were supposed to if you had grown up among the plantation owners of the pre-Civil War South, or in Germany in the 1930s”
Are you saying that in 30 years that society will collectively think neonazi beliefs are correct and thus we were crazy to ostracize them? And you are saying that is why we should stop censoring them? Because in a future state we might live in a dystopia we should stop censoring the people trying to create the dystopia? And also that censoring neonazis is akin to those example like being anti slavery in the antebellum south? Is this your take away? Those arguments sound rather farcical and Paul himself actually explains why that is.
Paul says this: “Of course, we're not just looking for things we can't say. We're looking for things we can't say that are true, or at least have enough chance of being true that the question should remain open.“
There is no doubt about neonazi propaganda. Whether or not it is true is not an open question. White supremacist propaganda maybe being right is not an open question.
Like another comment mentioned, it’s mind boggling that those making these arguments think those on the left aren’t aware of censorship, legal and societal, given how recently one could be persecuted for being too left and labeled a communist or arrested, ostracized and more for being lgtb.
I don’t believe those making the arguments actually believe the surface facade of pointing out “unconsidered information”, so there must be some alternative purpose to the argument. It almost be like trying to constantly remind someone who was shot and also lost someone of how dangerous guns are and that’s why even violent felons needs gun.
It’s also arguing victims should be glad they are continuing to be victimized and that they should help and defend their attackers.
Leftists are generally aware of this risk, because today there is no shortage of similar social pressure against leftist ideas, and do not think it's a concern. The problem is not that it's never occurred to them.
One reason why it's not a concern is that there's no reason to believe that a principled stand against this tactic by the left will have any influence on the right. Conservatives in Hollywood in the middle of the last century did not blacklist communists in response to any similar activity by communists; they did so spontaneously. So there's no reason to fear an increased risk of use of this tactic. Nobody is getting ideas they didn't already have.
Censorship always becomes about those in power staying in power. Look no further than wall street bets. That had nothing to do with left right but about control and power.
Of course no one in the mainstream media is willing to consider this, because apparently wsb is financial trumpism.
Wake up. This is what the aclu warned about 50 years ago.
Second, you do understand that it's possible to believe that both are bad, right?
I do understand that it's possible to believe both are bad. I am informing you that leftists do not. (There's probably a more general phenomenon where centrists say that tools that can be used towards bad ends are bad, and people of a particular partisan tendency say that bad ends are bad and not to be blamed on the tool. For instance, liberals are generally not in favor of expanded gun rights, because they understand that guns can be used towards bad ends. Leftists are generally in favor of expanded gun rights, because they understand that, and also understand that guns can be used towards good ends.)
see stuff akin to: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masterpiece_Cakeshop_v._Colora...
Where does this boundary lie?
Is political party unalterable? Ideology? Religion?
In general the Us recognizes race/ethnicity, sex, sexual orientation (to some degree) and religion as 'suspect classes' deserving of protection. But it's a thorny subject and understanding all the different perspectives is going to require a lot of reading.
It seemed every American not on the left is called "far right" from where I am sitting.
Half a dozen of my friends have moved to the States and a few have scolded me for my understanding saying that plenty of centrists are labeled far right.
I'm beginning to glaze over the label now. It doesn't hold any sway for me because it is used so flippantly.
Republicans are pretty unlikely to support such leftist notions as democratizing the means of production, whereas your average FAANG employee just might.
> It seemed every American not on the left is called "far right" from where I am sitting.
What you are seeing is polarization. At the current moment, a lot of the Republican party has moved away from more moderate Republicanism and more towards Trumpism, which is a far right movement.
Fact is that more Republican Congress members voted to punish a moderate Republican like Liz Cheney for voting to impeach Trump, than voted to remove Marjorie Greene from committee assignments for claiming school shootings and 9/11,were a hoax and that California wildfires were caused by a Jewish space laser.
It's not that anyone who isn't left is now considered far right. It's that a lot of people who were more moderate Republicans in the past, have moved much farther to the right. There are more people on the left side of the political spectrum that moved father out too, but not enough to even nominate one of the far left candidates for president.
We all know Merrick Garland should be on the SCOTUS. He isn't because a right-wing senate didn't allow a black president to nominate him.
From my perspective as a German, you have the centrist democrats that swing quite a bit in both directions, and the republicans who swing from center right to "makes our local right wing extremist party drool"-right.
I guess it's the result of having a two-party system.
Doesn't mean that other Americans no longer consider free speech important.
To make this obvious, this is not a free speech issue.
And yes it is a free speech issue when several companies that have left leaning cultures and leaders take concurrent actions to block a right leaning platform that mostly carries fully legal speech.
Why are you saying "probably"? A lot of it was backed up. You can go check for yourself, it was very markedly not limited.
Elaborating on that:
There was a mass shooting in New Zealand that was live streamed on Facebook. Now, imagine for a moment, what the public response would be if that had been on parler.
Your last line is absolutely correct: To make this obvious, this is not a free speech issue.
I've heard this claim asserted before. I am unconvinced. Can you show me some examples?
So basically transphobes that also larp as feminists.
I fail to see how evidence of hate and violence coming from trans extremists is transphobic.
a) Against whom or for what reason that incitement is happening if irrelevant.
b) Equating defending a persons right not to receive death threats to supporting their ideology is beyond dangerous.
It's a reminder, more to the point, is it a slur though?
If you are fine with denying someone's existence I am sure you can take whatever is coming to you from very people fighting against you.
> ...incitement of violence
I would disagree with the 'incitement of violence', but to be fair, I don't blame them either, I would have said the same as well.
Calling for people to be killed is never OK. Defending people who call for others to be killed is not OK.
Maybe don't deny the existence of people and perhaps you won't get those responses?
You're constantly implying that they deserve it with sentences like "Maybe don't deny the existence of people and perhaps you won't get those responses?".
I'm telling you that's being a huge dick because nobody deserves to be told that they should be killed, even if they are massive assholes themselves. And now you're trying to weasel-word your way out of it without admitting that those tweets are wrong, which sure doesn't make it seem like you disagree with them.
You can say that in response to any hateful tweet. Racism? "tweets don't kill you". Openly advocating for genocide? "tweets don't kill you". Claiming pineapple is a perfectly valid pizza topping? "tweets don't kill you".
This is not a free speech issue on any social media.
Amazon had every right to stop illegal activity on their platform.
The selective application of policy while pretending to be fair and unbiased tends to make folks cynical.
In the end, the lines we draw are often in the sand, and the legitimacy of these threats have to be weighed with the consequence of real world actions.
People storming the Capitol Hill building shouting these things posed a legitimate threat, but so do feminists shouting these things in rallies in real life, or the people burning police departments during the George Floyd protests. What we choose to condemn however, seems to be completely arbitrary to passers by.
All censorship of any speech is a free speech issue. My take is that it is sometimes justified to give consequences to speech that cause harm, but i don't think we should pretend its not a free speech issue.
That only a subset of the population wants to be marketed to under the banner of "free speech" doesn't mean that people don't care about free speech itself.
(Neither Gab nor Parler have any objection to FOSTA/SESTA's unconstitutional limitations on free speech and neither of them have any interest in standing up for the free speech rights of sex workers, let alone their ability to participate in the free market.)
Is free speech absolute?
If tomorrow, fox news falsely says your family is defrauding the IRS, qould you be ok with that because thwy have the right to free speech?
The intent of free speech is to have tge freedom to criticise those in power. Not to spread hate and divisions in the society.
If one wants the govt to ensure free speech, then it is implied it must also ensure a private individuals right to pursue legal actions, such as denial or service or lawsuits.
But that is not protected free speech under the first amendment.
https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/wayne/2021/0...
The problem with a very mechanistic/binary approach to legal questions is that it leaves a lot of room for antagonistic or outright threatening behavior that nevertheless remains within the bounds of legality. Experience suggests that's likely better than vague or arbitrary standards, but it's not a simple issue.
What I will not defend is someone who knowingly speaks untruths or uses language as a weapon with the intent to hurt others. Just because it uses mouth sounds doesn’t make something speech.
If you think homosexuals are an abomination and an affront to god then you’re free to believe that and tell everyone you know. But that doesn’t mean you should be allowed to shout f*g at a gay person on the street. Only the former is speech, the latter is hate.
It's because private companies don't want to host their extreme views. Private companies free to regulate their own platforms is a very Republican position.
Hobby Lobby and Chic Fil A are perfect examples of right leaning companies imposing their own political views of what is acceptable on their employees and customers.
It would be liberal to regulate what private companies allow or block on their platforms, which is why Republicans complain about being cancelled but don't take action. Forcing companies to allow free speech using regulations is a liberal proposition.
Right leaning people are free to create their own platforms that cater to far right conspiracies, racism, homophobia, death threats, and white supremacists. And that's what they did
A) the actual full scope of the problem of censorship in the real world,
B) the actual rights that other people have to freely associate or filter content they find objectionable, and
C) the actual practical ways to increase free speech access.
Ignoring for a second the ideologies these people espouse, purely speaking as a free speech advocate far right people make my job harder, both because they only seem to show up to advocate for free speech in very selective situations, and because most of their ideas on how to preserve free speech are, frankly, really bad.
Most of the far right crowd isn't going to show up to bat for concepts like Net Neutrality, they're not going to be out campaigning against LGBTQ+ or sex censorship. These are the people I see in my timelines cheering on government intervention into public university curriculums. They push dangerous concepts like Section 230 repeals or nationalizing media companies, and some of their more experimental proposals are just blatantly unconstitutional. It's wild to hear proposals from people who claim that they're free speech advocates that would not hold up under almost any Supreme Court ruling. These people also don't have sophisticated ideas on how to handle spam, pornography, or copyright other than to shrug their shoulders and say that the 1st Amendment shouldn't apply to those things. And their big solution to Twitter censorship is to make new centralized platforms that (for now) cater to specifically them; there's nothing realistic or interesting or permanent about what they're proposing. It's a demographic that likes to say that they're pro-free-speech, but in my opinion a lot of that is just thoughtless rhetoric around the fact that they're mad that different people than them now have power to form their own communities and organize their own social campaigns.
So I would not call Gab or Parler bastions of free speech, and it irritates me that those sites steal headlines and place themselves at the center of these debates. Both sites are far right echo chambers filled with a lot of people who's primary experience with censorship begins and ends with the idea that nobody should be allowed to block them on Twitter. And neither site is afraid to engage in its own censorship -- the sites bill themselves as 1st Amendment advocates purely based around who they censor, not because they have compelling or innovative ideas about how to run a community in general.
I'm being a little uncharitable here, but I'm not being very uncharitable. I have almost completely given up trying to engage with far right ideas on free speech, because a significant portion of that demographic is only interested in free speech in ways that personally benefit them, and trying to assemble their views into an internally consistent philosophy has frankly been kind of a giant waste of my time. If you're worried about tech censorship, go donate to Mastodon or Matrix -- projects that are filled with people who are actually thinking about free speech in deep, thoughtful, and practical ways.
The right has nuance to it the same way the progressive left has nuance that separates them from the establishment left. I think Gab and Parler give a voice to some questionable characters. Parler, in particular, has some investors I’m not exactly a fan of. However the ecology of diverse platforms does fit in with traditionally enlightenment ideas around speech that I subscribe to. So I support them. Perhaps we disagree what it means to be thoughtful. I think that’s a fair debate.
Speaking to your point about echo chambers, I agree this is probably the biggest societal and technological problem facing us today. How do we get people to see we aren’t all that different and want to debate complex issues? Far right” and “Radical Left” are not terms that inspire debate and critical thinking. It’s almost as if society wants to dumb us down and lower the human consciousness.
I'm willing to engage with Conservatives who are genuinely grappling with free speech and aren't falling into those contradictions, but I'm also not going to pretend that Gab has ever been a good faith actor in that conversation. Being upfront about the obviously hypocritical sections of both the far right and many mainstream GOP senators is a necessary part of that engagement. It means acknowledging that Conservatives are diverse, but also being blunt about the overall direction (in the context of the legislation, surveys, platforms like CPAC, and general official party statements coming out) that the party is going is not in a pro-free-speech direction. Because if I'm not upfront about those things, then the conversation just devolves into reexplaining freedom of association for the 20th time. And that devolution of discussion also crowds out the Conservatives who actually do care about free speech who might have something interesting to say.
Part of this is that I actually do care about free speech, so I have a vested interest in making progress during conversations, in moving past basic ideas that the free speech community has already hashed out, and instead engaging with more complicated ideas that are more important right now. I don't want to waste time rehashing the same debates over and over again just because people like Ted Cruz, Andrew Torba, and Donald Trump don't understand the free market. Not only because I don't really want to engage with those people in general, but also because the actual free speech debate matters, and those people are holding it back.
My frustration here was a response to a comment arguing that criticism of Gab as a platform was a sign that Americans overall no longer care about free speech. I'm happy to engage with Conservatives that have more nuanced views, but again, in my experience those are usually not the people who are trying to sell Gab as a free speech utopia. And to the original comment's question of why "free speech" platforms like Gab often tend to market primarily to a very specific segment of the alt right, it's important to understand that it's not because everyone else hates the 1st Amendment, it's because the alt right uses the "free speech" debate disingenuously as a cloak to hide more nefarious goals.
It really hasn't, and in my opinion, neither has any other social media platform.
> My frustration here was a response to a comment arguing that criticism of Gab as a platform was a sign that Americans overall no longer care about free speech.
Polarising the issues and gaslighting is the norm today.
It is indeed incredible, though perhaps not in the sense that you meant.
America once had a very finite number of publishers who were the primary gate keepers for what published. America suppressed the works of Wilhelm Reich and Henry Miller. America once arrested members of the IWW for engaging in street corner soapbox speak-outs [1]. America engaged in anti-socialist repression on a fairly large scale.[2] It's common to reference an imaginary free speech fundamentalist era somewhere in the US past but, sorry, it's not there.
And, of course, the extreme right only pretend to be true free speech fundamentalists - Note how the dropped Milo Yiannopoulos when his speech offended them.
[1] https://nvdatabase.swarthmore.edu/content/industrial-workers... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palmer_Raids
Imagine someone talking loudly outside your window all night. You’d have laws made about public disturbances. Would you then be a freedom hating communist? I don’t know about that.
Now if you also have a forum where you’d like to have more family friendly conversations. Would you welcome the Nazi hatemongerer? I would think you’d moderate them out.
Imagine you have a church, and an atheist disturbs your mass by shrieking god doesn’t exist. Would you escort them out?
This is so basic to me that I can’t believe people have a hard time grasping something so obvious. I can’t help but think they are being disingenuous.