It’s not that far of a shift (at least from the 90s Clinton admin).
> Although the content the EARN IT Act seeks to regulate is abhorrent and the government’s interest in stopping the creation and distribution of that content is compelling, the First Amendment still requires that the law be narrowly tailored to address those weighty concerns. Yet, given the bill’s broad scope, it will inevitably force online platforms to censor the constitutionally protected speech of their users. (https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/03/earn-it-act-violates-c...)
The Eliminating Abusive and Rampant Neglect of Interactive Technologies Act of 2020 (EARN IT Act) amends an existing federal law to force online platforms into changing how they moderate content online by scanning and censoring more of their users’ communications. (https://www.aclu.org/news/free-speech/the-earn-it-act-is-a-d...)
If it’s hard for a provider to tell what’s unlawful, but it’ll face legal liability if it gets it wrong, then the obvious incentive is for the provider to avoid the danger zone and censor lots of lawful content along with the unlawful content, just in case. This is exactly why Section 230 immunity is so important, because without it, platforms would constantly censor a lot of legal speech by their American users – maybe your speech – as a byproduct of trying to censor illegal speech, for fear that if they didn’t cast a wide net, some illegal speech would slip through and they’d get sued for it. (https://cyberlaw.stanford.edu/blog/2020/03/earn-it-act-uncon...)
Was there legislation? If not, how was it "banned"?
No, this is absurd. You don't get to imagine injustices by "the left" just because you don't like them. Right now the right is actively censoring teachers as private individuals. Where is this happening from left wing politicians?
Mitigations are now everywhere. I can’t watch a video of Elon Musk explaining how new Tesla cars will start up by recognizing specific patterns in the driver’s testicles without a big warning telling me that the video is AI-generated.
Funnily enough, the absolute best content tends to be the stuff with fact checker warnings.
But, the thing is, liberals _used_ _to_ espouse free speech as long as it was legal and defended it to the death, so to speak. Conservatives, well, they were conservative and were more on the "decency" argument but today that is reversed and the liberals are tending more autocratic than the conservatives.
Sex education is just part of the trend.
Hence the use of the phrase “don’t say gay”
It has nothing to do with sex. Republicans in florida have quite clearly criminalized same sex couples doing normal things.
Because that would be the equivalent.
The children are not the teachers friends. Leave them alone.
I don't care who their partner is, neither does my child. No one cares. Maybe we should ask why government employees aren't keeping stronger boundries when around children?
Also... Seriously? You aren't fooling anyone with these absolutely convoluted hypotheticals. No one is going to jail for saying "that's my <whatever>". It's an weak case when you need to reach outside of reality.
and you do realize that marriage and relationships ARE part of education? history english etc. at what age do kids learn about what a husbands or wife is and what is marriage? because that is the same age they should learn about same sex relationships.
> I don't care who their partner is, neither does my child
lots of people do. lots of parents want their kids to not be exposed to the fact same sex couples exist, hence the don't say gay bill. and afterwards schools pulling all library books because the mere mention of a same sex couple in one is enough for them to be sued under the bill.
you are correct no one will go to jail. but school districts can be sued, which means they will not hire gay teachers because of the simple risk one parent gets upset and racks up a legal bill for them
THAT is why its so bad, how is that so difficult to understand for you?
Because, the core of it was to ensure that said 3rd graders knew two things: 1. What the correct anatomical names for their genitals - parts of their bodies - are, and 2. What is appropriate and inappropriate touching.
Now, the reason you want to teach these things to children, really as young as possible, is because it turns out there's been quite a lot of child abuse cases where the defense case has rested on the fact that the victims don't actually know the anatomical names of body parts. And as a result when you go to prosecute, you can't conclusively prove from their testimony what was taking place, which it turns out has a habit of not convincing juries.
A child who only will sort of gesture to the lower part of their body, because they don't know to volunteer the correct name of the body part, again, it turns out, leads to a court system which fails to apply justice properly, and also increases the general risk of abusers being able to operate because they convince their victims that everything that's happening is "okay".
Oh, and as it turns out, it's also very hard to teach children how to identify this sort of thing without touching on the idea of their being multiple sexualities, because of course to teach something like appropriate and inappropriate touching you are quite likely (a) having to service questions from children who'll ask why it's not inappropriate for mommy and daddy, or (b) have to ask what about daddy and daddy or mommy and mommy and (c) who might struggle with the notion if it's not correctly identified that the inappropriate thing will apply regardless of gender, and yet can also be appropriate for adults regardless of gender.
There's a reason no one targeting primary school level physical education classes wants to say anything more then "sex ed" because, if they had to actually cover the content of what they were opposing, they'd rather look they were basically defending child predators. Which, though not directly, they are.
I mean, there's objective truth here; "he believes is correct" is a distortion of the facts. LGBTQ people actually do exist. Suing a school district and opposing the legislation of a state that's trying to erase classes of people from existence seems like a reasonable thing to do.
The Temecula school district in question decided they wanted to remove gay-rights activist Harvey Milk from the state-approved curriculum. Are we going to be willfully naive (or just flat-out bigoted) and suggest that they wanted to do that for any reason other than not wanting their kids to know homosexuality exists?
In the case of Florida, if teachers are allowed to discuss heterosexual relationships (even just simply talking about "mom and dad") in the classroom (which of course they are), legally requiring that they pretend homosexual relationships don't exist seems a bit absurd, no?
I'm not buying any of this as liberals trying to restrict free speech. If anything, it's the opposite: what if teachers wanted to teach the material the Temecula school board decided they wanted removed? What if teachers in Florida don't want to be afraid that they just might say something about a homosexual relationship and get fired?
Interesting, what's a good source on that?
https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/government-...
More accurate to say the establishment shifted away from liberalism.
In fact, it is the fascist right that want to remove privacy, has passed laws (like PATRIOT) to do so, and the supporters simply say “if you don’t want to be spied on, then what are you hiding”
The right wing are the ones actively pushing this along with “if you think privacy is a right, then you are a predator. Won’t someone think of the children?!”
> "There has not been a liberal push away from encryption."
Pointing out Democratic congresspeople who push away from encryption does not contradict wredue's claim. Liberal is not a party affiliation, when Democratic congresspeople push away from liberal principles they are being illiberal. Liberal doesn't mean "whatever it is that Democratic politicians support".
And yes, I know this is confusing to Americans who received their political education from AM talk radio or cable television, who's understanding of the term amounts to "whatever it is that Democratic politicians say." When a Democratic politician calls for violent lyrics in rap music to be banned (as some did in the 90s), that is illiberal. When a Republican says that abortion should be legal, that is liberal. Even though liberal values are generally associated more with one party than the other, that doesn't mean liberalism is nothing more than party affiliation.
Can you link to anything that actually backs up that claim of yours?
A business choosing not to do business with you, even in very specific and obtuse ways is not censorship. A private entity has no legal, ethical, or moral obligation to signal boost or publish anything they do not want to.
Also, language is not harmful. It may be abusive or offensive but it's not harmful. That's not to say people don't allow themselves to become affected by language --but one can be negatively affected by lots of language that isn't "hateful" but may be truthful or carry unwanted information.
Furthermore, language is demonstrably harmful by way of the weight we've given it over the years. We've also made strides in society in recognizing how to avoid using or enabling it in ways that harm marginalized groups.
This isn't rocket science.
That's banana republic level technique and tactics. This is something a Francisco Franco might have done. No, no, we don't have censors, we're just making sure only the truth of the moment is published. And of course, blackhole all the contradictions.
What other truths are you struggling to publish? What contradictions do you have that you're unable to display anywhere?
> Federal embeds counselling companies on content
What's this? I haven't heard about it.
> there’s been a cultural shift in the liberal establishment over the years away from protecting speech, even hateful speech to actively espousing and advocating for censorship
The shift is to protecting the rights of people oppressed by hate speech, in the balance between its speakers and victims. It's based on the idea that the politically vulnerable have their rights - including their free speech - abridged by hate speech. It says hate speech censors the politically vulnerable, so at some points, we must censor one or the other.
It's tricky, but portraying it as 'anti-free-speech' is like portraying 'pro-life' advocates as 'anti-personal-rights'. If we're honest then it's not that simple, whatever one's perspective.
I'm not sure how E2EE is implicated: If the speech isn't heard by the politically vulnerable, it's much less likely to be oppressive; if someone texts me hate speech over Signal, the encyrption doesn't matter. If it's a plan of violence, that's of course a different and existing issue.
> I get downvoted for having an opinion not totally in lock step with the social-liberal worldview.
The victim routine degrades the credibility of your comment. It looks like someone just following standard right-wing rhetoric. Also, you don't offer convincing evidence.
"Hate speech" is not defined in US law. Hate speech -- however one chooses to define it, outside of threats and incitements to violence -- is not illegal.
Hate crimes are a different story.
I've been applauding deplatforming and censorship of racist hate groups for years now, but more recently I've started becoming a bit worried that we're falling into a bizarro-world version of Niemoeller's "First they came for the socialists...".
On one hand I am worried that we are devolving to a state where no one is allowed to express an opinion that might just offend some hypothetical person, somewhere, even if no one can actually find that person. And on the other I worry that deplatforming shitty people doesn't actually fix all that much, and can often make matters worse.
On one hand I am worried that we are devolving to a state where no one is allowed to express an opinion that might just offend some hypothetical person, somewhere, even if no one can actually find that person."""
Remember that any party that would want to stifle speech could easily pay a third party to claim to be offended by speech.
To be clear I am not talking about the heckler's veto, where someone tries to actively interfere with the reception of someone's speech
It depends what they say. If they say 'advocate for yourself and we'll lynch you', it does effectively censor you.
The essence of freedom of speech has always been the ability of the common or marginalized folk to discuss and criticize those with power and privilege - the state, the landed, the majority. Attacking marginalized minorities is not the purpose of it and is a categorically different type of action - the marginalized don't have power over others to begin with.
Frustratingly the US is actually rather poor about expression freedom in a number of other ways (ways which ironically almost never come up when Americans talk about speech freedoms), and ranks below many other western nations.
If you make this the principle according to which you allow or censor speech, the predictable outcome is that would-be speakers will seek to establish that they are common and marginalized (or speaking for those who are) and their opponents have power and privilege (or work on behalf of those who are), as in a classical bravery debate (https://slatestarcodex.com/2013/05/18/against-bravery-debate...). In general, the powerful and privileged tend to be the ones who win these contests.