The Westminster Declaration
westminsterdeclaration.org
westminsterdeclaration.org
A lot of speech is censored or demonetized by abusing overly broad defamation and copyright laws (false DMCA strikes come to mind). At the same time, some of the censorship you see is "the free market" at work. Advertisers don't want to have their ads run next to certain kind of content. So should platforms be compelled to host such content regardless?
And where do you draw the line between merely an app or website and a digital "public square"? Certainly Facebook or Twitter seem like the latter by virtue of their size and reach, but what about Hacker News? Mastodon instances? The Something Awful forums?
Nobody gives a shit that racists have email newsletters (I assume they do?). I mean, people might, in the abstract, rather they didn't, but nobody's really trying to stop them or say they can't do that. Google adds a "what's trending in email" feed to gmail and starts promoting those on there, however, and a whole lot of people (and advertisers) might ask Google to knock that shit off. And... like, rightly so?
Maybe not racists but a lot of people definitely do care if folks trying to manufacture WMDs or refine uranium/plutnoium have email newsletters.
Based on what reasoning?
I favor the framing "the internet as a whole is the public square" over framings such as "this social media company is or is not a public square". A particular social media company has no inherent social obligation to host a diverse range of opinions. Governments cannot tell social media companies to moderate in a certain way, but social media companies should be able to moderate however they want to based on just about any motivations.
Imagine if you submitted a letter to the editor to a newspaper and got back a response saying they were refusing to print it because it violates their rules for appropriate content.
Now imagine you storm into the lobby of the newspapers' office accusing them of censorship and demanding that they print your letter. They'd call the police to please remove the crazy person. Nobody would have argued that you are entitled to having a letter published in someone else's newspaper. That's clearly insane.
Freedom of speech doesn't mean you are entitled to use someone else's property as a platform. The vast majority of the complaints about "free speech" I see today are people who seem to believe this. It's like we've become so accustomed to free (ad supported) social media that we've started to think it's some kind of entitlement.
There are very few things you can say (in the US) that will get you actually censored. I can think of copyright infringement, explicit threats of violence (and the bar there is very high), or child pornography. Other than those you can pretty much say anything you please. I am not aware of any time in the history of civilization when speech has been this free.
Edit: I must point out that my comment is US-centric. There are quite a few places in the world that don't take free speech as seriously. But I don't get the impression that's what this petition is about. It's about "cancel culture" which means "people refusing to let me use their property for free to promote any message I want."
Saying that "I believe COVID was the result of a lab leak, here is my evidence" versus Saying "I believe COVID was the result of a lab leak, here is my evidence, and as a result we should [do something violent/illegal]"
See the difference? The former should _not_ be restricted under any circumstance, even if the "evidence" is bunk. Let the fact that the evidence is bunk sink the theory, not the moderators. The latter, on the other hand, contains a call to violence, so it should reasonably be restricted.
Of course, a privately owned platform like Twitter/X could say the former isn't allowed on their platform and they would be within their rights to restrict it. However if they restrict it because of pressure from the US government, that falls into a more precarious situation.
Of course the 1st amendment only applies to the government. Platforms can restrict anything they want with or without explanation. But the government can't pressure platforms to restrict things, that _does_ violate the 1st amendment, as the private company is then acting as a proxy for the government.
Actually the right of reply is something that many people have argued for.
Haha. These people aren't interested in "censorship." And they're not acting in good faith.
It promotes a philosophy that is contrary to Freedom of Speech.
You can't label some speech "dangerous" because you don't like it.
They don't like others labeling speech "misinformation" or "disinformation".
But here's the thing, the act of stating that something is "misinformation" or "disinformation", is, in and of itself, an act of exercising Freedom of Speech.
I am genuinely asking becuase I do not understand the majority opinion here.
The point of the Twitter files is that politicians wanted to label information detrimental to their campaigns as lies. Which is Free Speech.
Politicians lie. Or maybe they don't. But whether they do or don't is irrelevant to them being able to say what they want to say.
Now your problem with them lying is apparently that Twitter moderated content on its website in response to the claims of political parties that the content was lies. That's Twitter's prerogative. That's also called Freedom of Speech.
But no one at the FBI or the CIA came in and told Twitter, "Hey, this is misinformation." In fact, unless I miss my guess, those agencies have vanishingly little interest in me as an American citizen being told the facts about just about anything.
The Twitter files prove that the government did not ask Twitter to take down anything. Liberal and Conservative political gangs did.
To put Freedom of Speech in perspective here, you can claim the government is out to label everything misinformation. I can claim the acceleration of gravity on Earth is roughly 9.8 m/s^2. And the government can make the claim that both of our claims are misinformation.
All 3 of those claims are Freedom of Speech. You can't say the government's claim is "bad", because it's claiming we're spreading misinformation. It doesn't matter if I'm "correct" or "incorrect", others, including the government, have the right to say I'm full of it.
The Twitter Files are full of emails and meetings with the FBI where they do exactly that, along with many references to meetings with the CIA (which they called "OGA" for "other government agency").
https://www.racket.news/p/twitter-files-thread-the-spies-who
Especially as the election approached in 2020, the FITF/FBI overwhelmed Twitter with requests, sending spreadsheets with hundreds of accounts
One of the most common forums was a regular meeting of the multi-agency Foreign Influence Task Force (FITF), attended by spates of executives, FBI personnel, and – nearly always – one or two attendees marked “OGA.”
Despite its official remit being “Foreign Influence,” the FITF and the SF FBI office became conduit for mountains of domestic moderation requests, from state governments, even local police.
Example email:
"Hi Stacia, Our FBI Baltimore office identified these Twitter handles and tweets which appear to provide misleading information"
> The Twitter files prove that the government did not ask Twitter to take down anything
It's baffling to me that anyone could read about the Files and conclude this given the entire spreadsheets of users being sent directly from US Government police and intelligence agencies to Twitter, requesting takedowns of that content. They literally prove the exact opposite of this.
More importantly, the Westminster Declaration wants social media companies to host speech that the companies might not want on the platform.
> We call on tech corporations to undertake to protect the digital public square as defined in Article 19 of the UDHR and refrain from politically motivated censorship, the censorship of dissenting voices, and censorship of political opinion.
Suppose for the sake of example that moderation on Twitter has been politically motivated [2]. Then according to the Westminster Declaration, Twitter shouldn't ban conservative opinions, nor liberal opinions, nor anti-semitic opinions, nor support of the January 6th resurrection, even if some of the posts expressing those opinions might happen to break Twitter's current terms of service.
But what does it matter that a moderation decision was motivated by something or other, so long as the government isn't pressuring (not the same as merely suggesting) the company to make the decision? Users who aren't welcome on one social media platform for their opinions can join another social media platform, such as a Mastodon instance. Having freedom of speech doesn't require that a few platforms host all opinions, but that anyone who wants a social media platform to host certain opinions can join or make one without fear that the country's governments would restrict/punish such a platform.
[1] https://www.techdirt.com/2023/04/07/mehdi-hasan-dismantles-t...
[2] https://www.techdirt.com/2023/06/29/internal-twitter-video-r...
So they publish lies like this.
Which is an act of bad faith where the support of Free Speech is concerned.
How? Explain, please.
However, I recently watched (for a reason I won't go into here) Nelson Mandela talking about apartheid, and why he accepted support from communist dictators such as Castro or Khaddafi, when it was clearly in bad faith.
And he explained that he is looking at it solely from the perspective of ANC goals, and the dictator's (material) support for their cause.
So this got me thinking, I as a leftist do not define my identity around a cultural or ethnic group, and I instead ground my identity around moral universalism of human rights. Which means, I have to reject guilt by association, because in some sense, I am not loyal to any group.
Even if you only support free speech, you should reject guilt by association, because it makes engagement with the opposing side impossible.
So I don't really see how supporting a declaration I pretty much agree with can hurt the cause, despite the fact I think some of the signatories are acting in a bad faith.
(I neither agree nor disagree with their post)
He's about the only name I recognise that I wouldn't have immediately placed in the "giving free speech a bad name" category.
I'm not the GP commenter, but I am. There is actually a so-called "wrong speech" or whatever you want to call it. Repressive speech such as open racism - we don't need that shit. Ever. And without it, we may cultivate actual free speech.
Also, you make conclusions based on bias. You can be racist and also violence free and vice versa.
Actually, I didn't assume they would be violent.
I'm not trying to be facetious or obtuse, I actually don't see how this could work. Speech is a natural right, i.e., I can speak (or not) *any* thoughts irrespective of the presence or permission of government (albeit not without consequences post-hoc). Any attempt to restrict that right proactively must (at least) border on tyrannical, and that's before we even get into how it would be decided which speech is acceptable and which must be censored. After all, even the example subject we're building this conversation around has at least two extant, incompatible definitions.
Yeah there's actually a super simple answer: it's not, and you don't. Why are you assuming I want to go into their homes to police what they say in private?
The first question (slightly paraphrased) was:
How do you prevent [the natural right of free speech] from overriding your efforts to restrict [speech in public fora] (word of mouth being the best advertising)?
You think Steven Pinker, Julian Assange, Richard Dawkins, John Cleese, Edward Snowden, Glenn Greenwald, and Ayaan Hirsi Ali “[give] free speech a bad name”?
There's no useful discussion of free speech that doesn't acknowledge the need to cultivate free speech by pruning repressive speech. Walled garden and all that.
For purposes of this discussion, let's talk about the origins of Covid-19 and how surgical masks had little effect on the lab-borne virus. Or we can talk about how anti-maskers' rhetoric harmed a vulnerable population, and how discussions of lab-vs-wild distracted us from what should have been our immediate concerns.
Should the government talk to Twitter about my statements to that effect?
What about forcing vaccinated pupils to share a classroom with unvaccinated peers?
Some people will share their (reasonable!) opinion that allowing unvaccinated students presents a hazard to the school population. Others will share their (also reasonable!) opinion that denying education based on vaccination status presents a hazard to the development of our kids.
These are examples! I do not want to actually debate Covid 19 shit. Instead, I'm using it as something concrete to get at the larger ideas about speech "cultivation" and "pruning", and who decides what is "repressive".
So, who's building the garden walls?
Any social media company should be able to prune to whichever degree each company wants to. And the pruning doesn't have to be about whether speech is repressive in X way. It can be as frivolous as "Ban all people who like carrots" to something as serious as "Ban people who think X about Covid". In other words, I personally don't support the Westminster Declaration beyond situations involving government coercion.
> For purposes of this discussion, let's talk about the origins of Covid-19 and how surgical masks had little effect on the lab-borne virus. Or we can talk about how anti-maskers' rhetoric harmed a vulnerable population, and how discussions of lab-vs-wild distracted us from what should have been our immediate concerns.
> Should the government talk to Twitter about my statements to that effect?
"Talk to" is very broad. In my opinion: "Hey, this post might have misinformation" is okay because it's just a heads-up, not a suggestion of an action. By okay, I mean legal under the First Amendment. "We would prefer that you take down the post" is okay because it only suggests an action. "We want you to take down the post, or we will do Y" is not okay because it's coercive. "Take down the post" is not okay because it might have a tone of finality and thus coercion. (I say "might" because determining the tone of a written text is inevitably subjective.)
"Should" the government talk to Twitter? Not necessarily, and it depends on the topic. But at the same time, not every kind of moderation-related communication between a social media company and a government should be frowned upon.
> So, who's building the garden walls?
I'm actually going to choose not to answer these questions because I am exhausted of them being trotted out as if the answer is "it's impossible".
In actuality, better thinkers/writers than I have answered them many times before because they're such obvious problems in anything but the simplest possible set of rules (the one TFA is arguing for: all speech is equal and not harmful).
Most atheists are able to express their disagreement, or even opposition, to religion without expressing hatred against religion. Unfortunately, Richard Dawkins is not that sort of atheist.
I'm thankful for what Edward Snowden did. Unfortunately, even if he didn't have much choice, by fleeing to Russia he made it much easier for people to dismiss criticisms of surveillance as anti-American propaganda.
From what I've heard, John Cleese's criticism of "cancel culture" has been nuanced and reasonable. Unfortunately, a lot of people just lump him in with out of touch comedians whining that they get criticized for telling bigoted jokes. My point being; although I don't think it's fair, his inclusion is unlikely to do the Westminster Declaration any favors in terms of changing people's minds.
Yes.
John Cleese, for example, is just about to start a show on a channel that he thought was a "free speech" channel. Then he got annoyed that they hired Boris Johnson, who he described as a serial liar.
Who could have seen that coming, except anyone who was paying the slightest bit of attention?
https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2023/oct/28/john-cleese-...
And he's maybe the best of that particular bunch.
60 years ago, it meant "protecting the rights of non-white, non-straight, non-religious people." It could mean that again someday.
Most of their issues boil down to "someone else won't promote a thing I want them to" or "someone else said a thing (about a thing another someone said) that I don't like".
I'm sensitive to the notion that megacorps have positioned themselves as a replacement for the commons, but to address the issues these folks have without making some really weird speech-policy moves, we'd need to take those same platforms out of the "promoting" game entirely, which would both kill those platforms (no complaints here, let's do it) and make them uninteresting to the people signing declarations like this. Otherwise, we're doing the equivalent of saying "it's not enough that I can hand out home-printed fliers of my op-ed on the street corner—nobody takes them! The NYT must be both compelled to publish them and prohibited from expressing their belief that these are a bunch of nonsense!"
I don't think Facebook, Twitter, Google, et c. should be taking on the role of editors, publishers, and promoters without the usual amount of responsibility, but as long as we're allowing that, I don't think it makes sense to force them to promote or publish everything or to editorially frame everything a certain way, which is exactly what these folks want.
Where do you see anything about "twitter must promote my views"? Where do you see anything about NYT, or anyone, being prohibited from publishing its own reaction?
When I search for "Twitter" I find a reference to the Twitter files, which demonstrated that governmental units communicated directly with social networks to get them to censor certain viewpoints. Shortly SCOTUS will probably rule on that, which should settle the matter of whether that's even legal (prediction: it's not).
As for "a bunch of nonsense" -- that's what free speech is: the right to spew a bunch of nonsense. And as for socials being "forced" -- it's sufficient if they follow the same rules named for the licensing of standards-essential patents:
FRAND: fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory
No, there was also the other 95% of my post.
> Where do you see anything about "twitter must promote my views"? Where do you see anything about NYT, or anyone, being prohibited from publishing its own reaction?
NYT was an example, to illustrate the role of internet media companies in terms of Old Media. I don't literally mean the NYT is one of this group's specific targets. Sorry that wasn't clear.
As for the rest, it's in the linked declaration that this thread's about. Aside from worrying about government censorship programs (sure, that'd be bad, OK) it's really the only other thing in it, in fact. The signatories don't want Twitter (and more than just Twitter, since we had the confusion above—that's an example, to be clear) to express their opinion that certain posts are nonsense, or to remove tweets Twitter doesn't want to publish. That's censorship and compelled speech. FWIW I think certain core things about how social media companies operate ought to be illegal (all the spying) or ought to shift more legal liability onto them (they are publishers, whatever they claim), such that they'd probably all have to shutter, so it's not that I love social media companies—but these folks want to compel speech and censor, it's literally what they're asking for. Meanwhile, if they don't want to force someone to promote and publish their speech for them, they have plenty of outlets for that [EDIT Like their own website—and oh, look, that's exactly where they've published this!]—yet here we are, so I guess they do want that.
> When I search for "Twitter" I find a reference to the Twitter files, which demonstrated that governmental units communicated directly with social networks to get them to censor certain viewpoints. Shortly SCOTUS will probably rule on that, which should settle the matter of whether that's even legal (prediction: it's not).
K.
> As for "a bunch of nonsense" -- that's what free speech is: the right to spew a bunch of nonsense.
Fine?
> And as for socials being "forced" -- it's sufficient if they follow the same rules named for the licensing of standards-essential patents:
> FRAND: fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory
I entirely don't see what that has to do with this. [EDIT] Actually, let me amend that: let's say we apply this rule to social media for some reason, then where's the room for their simply not wanting to publish, promote, or frame your post as you'd prefer, for any reason they choose? This is the exact thing I'm writing about! You wondered where I'm getting this from, look at your own post!
1) they can do whatever they want, for any reason, and
2) they're liable for it
Right? Like any newspaper?
Fine. I'm good with that. Also good with them being "common carriers" but they don't seem to want that, and as I wade through the ton of verbiage you've produced today, you don't seem to either.
As for FRAND: it's an aspiration, not a claim that it already applies. But as for the rest of that paragraph, if they accepted FRAND they wouldn't be a publisher; they'd be a regulated provider of a service.
> You wondered where I'm getting this from, look at your own post!
You're a walking illustration of the adage, "don't engage with kooks; it only encourages them." So I'm not wasting any more time here.
A quick look at X shows he hasn't posted there since 2021. I don't see any other social media profiles in the Google results for his name. So why is he signing this thing, if the real reason for it is to force Twitter to promote tweets or whatever?
That's just picking a name at random. I suspect there's a variety of motivations, and I think at best a handful are driven by a desire to get more attention on Twitter.
> Interested in learning more on how you can support free speech around the globe? Please send us a message.
Really? Now, I don't recognize all the names there, but most of the once-left-associated names I do see are people who have shifted to full-throated advocacy of right-wing substantive positions [0] (or full-time attacks on everyone from the center-right and further left, which amounts to the same thing), occasionally using left-flavored rhetoric, especially the selective advocacy of “free speech” that focuses on exactly those cases where the right-wing pretends to care about it, but none of the places where the actual left is complaining about restrictions on expressive rights.
Its especially noteworthy that with governments throughout the West working to shutdown protests calling for a Middle East cease fire being one of the biggest immediate and eidely shared speech issues of the left, its mentioned nowhere among the examples, all of which are things the Right has complained about (and at least one is not about a speech, but not treating a Right-populist ex-leader as beyond accountability.)
Seems to me this is more across the spectrum of the open right, the people playing centrist to advance right-wing propaganda, and the people playing leftist to advance right-wing propaganda.
[0] A shift which in many cases occurred right around the same time it became clear that Russia was escalating influence operations in the West and focussing them largely (thougj not entirely) around focussing on using right-wing nationalist causes and movements as their leverage for division.
Have fun hanging out at the Nazi bar then[1]. Don't drag us into it. It turns out, completely unrestricted speech actually has a massive negative effect on open discourse. Which is why we see more and more art, discourse, politics, etc. from marginalized people when we shut Nazis up.
I think excessive and partisan application of censorship is a bad thing. I think a total eradication of limitations on speech is also a bad thing. I think nuance is a great thing :)
I do agree that we need better transparency and oversight on corporate censorship of communication... but I would never suggest that we should stop calling people out for being assholes (a form of free speech which is often ironically touted as censorship by said assholes), nor would I suggest we should allow fascists to inject themselves into every conversation. In the latter case, I actually support censorship of people using speech to do harm to society. Also, I believe fascism is harmful to society - surprisingly controversial among the free speech champions.
https://nassimtaleb.org/2016/08/intolerant-wins-dictatorship...
The intolerant seem to have quite a bit of free time on their hands and spend it recruiting others online using speech to do so. Communities who encounter the intolerant find themselves largely unable to change their minds. Rather than getting effectively DOSed, they find it easier to accomplish the same ends via censorship.
Is it possible to discourse the intolerant out of that state? If so, is it time-effective to do so?
Tolerance was never a reason the Nazis rose to power or stayed in power. It was always rigorous control of others that enabled them.
Even when they were being opposed - by the violence of the communists, they met violence with violence. And escalated that violence. It was a "us or them" situation that they built - and german society eventually chose the Nazi's violence over the communist violence. This wasn't tolerance of the Nazis. They simply outlasted the communists.
Please please please stop spreading this falsehood.
original contained a stupid quip I no longer endorse:
> Hey, you're not allowed to say I'm spreading misinformation. Didn't you read the declaration?!
> we need to use judgment
Who's 'we' in this case?
Today: Corporate overlords, which is Bad.
That's why I don't propose that there is a solution-in-isolation to improper censorship. It can only work in a holistic approach to greater transparency and respect within our society and on our tech platforms for discourse.
Getting rid of speech restraints entirely (a solution-in-isolation) just results in a different, implicit censorship, where marginalized voices self-censor because they are afraid. So, in other words, it's not really a solution that leads to a better world, it's just an alternative Bad Situation to the one we're in now. It's easy for people to think it's a solution because it's simplistic and because it is extreme, which means it aligns with an ideal that people hold, and everyone believes their ideals are sustainable if implemented to the extreme (yes yes even me etc)
edit: and, yeah, my quip above was kind of stupid.
I just read an article the other day saying that the majority of Americans don't feel comfortable stating their opinions in public. For university students the number was quite a bit higher (I wanna say 65%). If self-censorship is a problem, then it's one we should be confronting now, not just worrying about in hypothetical futures.
I agree with you that the solution is...well, more sophisticated and self-moderating systems. I was going to say 'more sophisticated censorship', but actually I think that should be a last resort.
The single biggest part of the problem, I think, is the incentives facing media, tech, and news companies. Social media companies have every incentive to drive engagement, which often means promoting the most controversial posts and people. Then media & news companies are incentivized to report on or debate with those posts & people in order to generate clicks and ad views, which raises their profile still further. The result is that we all see the worst (or at least, most extreme) behavior and opinions on the other side. This makes our opponents into a caricature, while at the same time we end up adopting and defending the extremists on our own side. Being constantly exposed to the nuts on the far side leads to the belief that censorship is good and necessary.
If we just aligned the incentives for the health and benefit of the readers, the crazies would sink to the bottom and be forgotten. That's hard to do, but I'm holding out some hope for federated social media. Of course...that still leaves news & media companies.
Sure but I am not necessarily concerned about all of those people. For example, I think the majority of Americans still don't believe in systemic racism. Like they don't believe it exists. If they're afraid to share such anti-scientific beliefs in public, then I consider that a good start.
Therein lies the fundamental assumption that I don't agree with. I take part in online spaces where I am a moderator and others where I merely feel confident that the moderators care about my concerns.
I know that this is harder to scale. But I don't think it's impossible. That feels almost silly to me to say. Systems can be made incrementally more transparent and more robust, therefore why should we expect there to be a hard physical limit on how transparent and respectful moderation can be?
However, based on that assumption that it's physically impossible, I still don't think I agree that speech should be completely unrestricted. I'd maybe prefer to have tools to weed out dangerous elements even if means some good ideas are being censored, but that would require some really nuanced examination.
Free speech means I can freely claim that, for example, 9.8 m/s^2 is the acceleration due to gravity here on this rock we call Earth.
But it also means that someone else can claim that my estimate for the acceleration of gravity here on Earth is BS.
The "correct"-ness or the "incorrect"-ness of your speech is irrelevant. People can say whatever they want about you. You can't say that someone calling BS on my estimate for the acceleration due to gravity is harmful to free speech.
No.
It IS free speech.
We can all say what we want.
And others can say what they want. Including calling what I say BS, or lies, or misinformation.
When you want to prevent others from being able to claim you are promoting BS, you are trying to restrict Free Speech.
When this Declaration speaks disparagingly of “disinformation experts” and “fact checkers”, I have to ask whether some of these people might actually be correcting errors in the statements they are analyzing. Whether they are doing this in the service of Big Media or the Great Pumpkin is irrelevant: or do these individuals and organizations not also have the benefits of free speech?
As Daniel Patrick Moynihan once said, “You are entitled to your own opinion. But you are not entitled to your own facts.” By blurring opinion and fact, this Declaration is not helpful.
We must all be vigilant to protect the right of all to free expression. And we may differ strongly in what forms of expression should not be protected, notably the right to shout “Fire!” in a crowded theatre. I don't feel that this Declaration adequately deals with this issue.
A perennially terrible example to whip out in these discussions, given that it's a quote from potentially one of the most backwards and odious SCOTUS decisions (Schenck v. US) that upheld a conviction against a man protesting the draft. It was later was overturned (Brandenburg v. Ohio).
There are a lot of things that were often stated as if they were facts, that turned out to be wrong, with deadly results. The "experts" are only shown to be wrong well after the fact in many cases, only because of free inquiry.
We need free discourse if we are to have a free society. Otherwise, we end up with blind faith in "Experts" whose statements can't lawfully be falsified.
It speaks disparagingly of "disinformation experts" and "fact checkers" working with the government to guide censorship.
We're in an age where the free electronic sharing of, not merely false, but crafted disinformation and propaganda against the interests of society, is trivial and common place.
This declaration fails to mention this problem, let alone engage with it. Rendering its protestations mute. It offers nothing to people in power: no solutions, no analysis of the problem, no even basic acknowledgement.
This is deeply unpersuasive.
The question for this group, which they must answer to be taken at all seriously is: how do you enable collective action in times of serious hardship, crisis, or political turmoil in an age where people's exposure to information is proportional to how much that information outrages them?
You can say, if you like, "you do not" -- that is at least honest. But this reads dishonestly. This takes place in a world without Jan 6th, without qanon, without the similar unrest in brazil, the toppoling of democracies in africa -- without the arab spring and it's awful failure.
The world we live in requires answers to these problems more sophisticated than a highschool essay.
Barri Weiss, Matt Taibbbi, Claire Fox, Jordan Peterson, Toby Young, on and on, and mostly just the usual suspects of people who whinge about Free Speech when it's boycotts of their bad ideas or social exclusion for arseholes, but are nearly universally silent on e.g. billionaires harrassing uni students or US governments making you promise not to boycott Israel or suing you for defamation or trying to get you sacked from your job for saying something they disagree with.
most of the notable people on this list could do infinitely more service to the sincere cause of safeguarding free speech by shutting the fuck up a lot more and then sometimes speaking up in support of speech they don't like.
The arguments against free speech aren't really arguments based on any related principle or reason at all, because they are mainly just militating against people, and not engaging with ideas. They're not discourse. The alternative to discourse is violence, and attempts to suppress discourse tacitly advocate that violence.
The principled people who signed this delcaration have had the patience of saints so far, perhaps because they understand what the consequences are when it fails. I don't think there is anyone to convince or persuade anymore. Find each other, connect, and just cut out anyone who repeats the recieved narratives. Save yourselves, there's nothing you can do for them.
Separately, I think we should get big tech out of the business of acting as the public commons, but I don't think forcing them to apply promotion and editorial decisions without regard for the content itself is a good idea. We could force them to stop doing all promoting and editing, which would kill the platforms (good! I'm OK with that!) but that doesn't seem to be what these folks want. They already have that in the form of email, and they don't seem to think it's sufficient.
To reference a provided example, the civil rights movement certainly benefited from freedom of speech, but at no point were mainstream media outlets compelled to publish opinions by civil rights leaders. While I'm pretty ignorant of the history, I'm sure the civil rights movement was largely organized and energized by alternative media - zines, newsletters and the like - and not by ABC news.
Imo, the next big argument will likely be whether there is a difference between a platform and a protocol as well.
Kicking someone off Twitter or banning their Facebook profile doesn't make anyone safer. It's as much theater as putting your liquids in a plastic bag to go through airport security is.
If someone is a threat there are ways to handle that. This includes threats originating online - there's actually no difference in how they're handled in my experience. If someone isn't a threat and they're just saying things you don't like, perhaps the correct course of action is to either ignore them, or learn to deal with reading things you don't like.
How do you recommend handling things?
Is it that somebody reads a mean tweet, and they feel bad? Respectfully, oh well. I go back to my earlier point - grow up.
Not having to read things you dislike, not having to wrestle with hard moral questions, not having to interact with people who have different beliefs and moral compasses is only a right insofar as you remove yourself from those environments. You don't have an inalienable right to remove other people from places they want to be because they say things that are hard for you to deal with.
Every time this subject comes up and someone seems even remotely on the side of "people should be able to say whatever they want, within the already-well-defined guardrails set up by society" the fascists come out of the woodwork screeching about how that inevitably means that Nazis are going to be killing trans people in the streets and how can we support Nazis?!? Literally in this thread your response to feeling good not being a human right (it's not) is about being murdered, which is irrelevant.
It's exhausting, and I don't think your arguments in this thread are in good faith.
Free Speech is a human right, Feelgoods aren't. Case closed
If speech you do not want to hear is not protected, nothing is protected!