The result of the recent poll on Twitter, instigated by Elon Musk, showed that 52% of respondents wanted Donald Trump to be reinstated on the platform.
I can think of several scenarios where speech should come with legal consequences. You get to say what you want, but there should be redress if what you say causes material loss, for example. It would be unjust otherwise. How would a business owner defend themselves against reputational damage and consequent financial loss if a malicious person is allowed to spread lies about that business unhindered?
But it is something that needs really careful thinking about. Really careful. The cafe (in Portland maybe? I can't remember now) that was accused of 'racism' for objecting to a couple of black guys shoplifting pretty much had their business shut down when the activists and the local university spread unfounded claims. It was only fair that they were able to seek redress against this injustice (they won their court case and were awarded significant damages).
On the other hand, we could think about how a much larger entity, say Pfizer, could wield their corporate power and this kind of legal redress to shut down any criticism of their products, for example.
It's something, like I said, that needs really, really careful and precise thinking about how sensible protections for individuals and free speech are jointly managed.
I want to be a free speech 'absolutist' but I can think of too many edge cases, grey areas, where I'm not 100% comfortable with being able to defend it. What about if someone publishes a manual on how to successfully groom kids? And offers techniques for maximizing the chance of avoiding detection? My gut tells me I don't want that kind material to be made widespread.
I'm OK with a framework that seeks to maximise freedom of speech but does criminalise certain kinds of speech. But here's the rub - the danger here is that we end up with 'mission creep' and more and more kinds of speech get classed in the 'criminal' bin. We're seeing that happen on an accelerating scale with 'hate' speech, for example.
One thing's for sure though, if you're going to criminalise speech at all, then the bar to pass from 'free speech' into criminality should be set pretty high.
Yeah - I'm probably getting things a bit muddled up with regards to the difference between 'restrictions' and 'legal consequences'.
I'm still trying to work out my own position on this (and have been for some time). I get the point with an absolutist position, but I'm still not 100% on board with that because of the 'grey areas' I can think of. I would probably say I'm a 99% free speech absolutist haha (which of course makes not a lot of logical sense because, by definition, if one is in favour of some limits to free speech then one is not, technically, in favour of free speech).
But if we are going to do the kind of fence-sitting I suggest, then the fence needs to be fucking high and very uncomfortable to sit on. If we're going to limit/restrict speech at all then it needs to be for really, really bloody good reasons.
But what we're seeing at the moment goes way beyond any proportionate and reasonable controls. People are *causally* linking criticism of gender ideology with the recent awful shooting in the LGBTQ bar and calling for GC accounts to be shut down. I don't know how to adequately draw the line when it comes to what speech to 'control' which is why if I had to choose, right now, I would opt for an absolutist position as being less harmful than one in which controls are too rigorous.
It's a mess - and my thoughts on this are a bit of a mess. Free speech (or as close as we can get to it) is really vital.
Could add a couple of things, examples we used in school:
Doctor - patient confidentiality; should it supercede free speech? If so, how is the rule to be written? If a third party spreads details from a patient's journal, is that a crime or not? And so on with the details in that specific case.
What with a priest hearing a confession, does the priest then have the right to speak freely about what was said (not talking about the church's stance but the law)? What if someone confesses to a heinous crime - does the priest then have no obligation to report this? And why should priests of any denomination have special rules at all, for anything? Does that mean anyone claiming their norms are granted by some deity or other also receives legal privileges based on that claim? And so on.
Or teacher-student confidentiality, with which I'm personally familiar. We were instructed to always preface serious talk with a student suspected to be in trouble or have problems (such as an abusive home environment) with that we as teachers have confidentiality, but also an obligation to report certain things to proper authorities. Tricky, when you want the student to open up so they can get help.
It's easy to take the absolutist stance. Here's an actualexample from swedish debate on this from a few years back:
Drawings picturing child pornography. Swedish libertarians, who are free speech absolutists, argued that this does not constitue child pornography, since it doesn't depict an actual event, and that freedom of speech and of artistic expression trumps and supercedes the absolute ban on child pornography (only people dealing with it in a professional capacity may look at or possess it at all, and only by dispensation from a prosecutor if it is part of research or an investigation).
Needless to say, public support for the libertarian position was zero, and it was ruled in court - with prejudicial status - that the medium as such does not matter. The act and nature of the image is what counts.
For a different take, swedish defamation and libel laws have no requisite that the allegations made are false or distorted with intent to mislead, only that the person filing the complaint has been "disproportionately adversely affected"; needless to say, this law is being used to silence citizen journalists and political opposition when establisment politician's crimes and emabarassments are made public.
It ain't that clear cut, is what I'm saying. There's lots and lots of fiddly bits.
That is why they are doing this. Our first amendment is first for a reason. When you have censorship, you no longer have a representative form of government. That our government has a direct hotline to these so called "private" platforms is a serious problem and I am afraid there is no judge in the country who wants to go against our DOD. But that is what must be done. In addition, we did it with AT&T and need to do it now. We need to legally declare twitter, facebook, all social media including you tube and instagram PUBLIC UTLITIES...and they need to be broken up.
Where are the politicians who have not been blackmailed who will stand up for us?
Well you don't know how many of those pro-censorship votes were bots. Perhaps a great many indeed.
But as I've said many times, clearly many people today do not really care about the "system" at all. They want what they want, right now. They want to hurt people they dislike, right now. What happens tomorrow, whatever, they can't think that far ahead.
Nov 21, 2022·edited Nov 21, 2022Liked by Rudolph Rigger
There is only one book and one truth and that is the Quran, is a very common opinion both historically and today, among hundreds of millions of humans.
That's the logical end-point of today's trend. Well, not necessarily actual islam (though given the colonisation of Europe...?) but essentially the same thing where the EUSSR's word replaces the Quran as the one and only truth.
It's funny that our Western governments seem to think Twitter is a bigger threat than Tik Tok.
With that said, Trump's popularity and support jump when people are mean to him and he's muzzled. I'm optimistic that the poll's 48% must have consisted of more than a few Trump fans who realized he's at his best when he's being attacked and suppressed. (Not that I don't agree with you that the first amendment shouldn't be on any ballot.)
It takes an enormous amount of energy to create and propagate.
The Truth, however is actual.
It is real and known.
It cannot be truthfully denied as fact.
I learned this when I was four years old.
All this censorship and propaganda is aided and abetted by that law that Obama signed that allows the US government and it's enablers to create and disseminate propaganda, i.e. : LIES.
Reverse that law, and Truth will be able to reassert itself without so much difficulty.
100%! What the Constitutional rights suppressors don't seem to understand is that social media platforms are the 'public squares' of today's era. The public spaces in ancient civilizations like Rome, Athens, etc where the people would gather to debate important societal and political issues. Because FREE AND OPEN DISCOURSE IS ESSENTIAL TO DEMOCRACY (I know, I know, we are not a *true* democracy. But still...).
And the "private companies can do whatever they want" argument has no merit when government de facto controls the content by way of controlling the behavior/policies/practices of those so-called "private" companies.
This is what we need to emphasize to the Wokerati.
legal restrictions and criminalisation are two completely different things.
there should be neither of them.
everyone should be able to say whatever he wants.
no restrictions whatsoever.
all restrictions are a step towards totalitarianism.
I can't agree with you here.
I can think of several scenarios where speech should come with legal consequences. You get to say what you want, but there should be redress if what you say causes material loss, for example. It would be unjust otherwise. How would a business owner defend themselves against reputational damage and consequent financial loss if a malicious person is allowed to spread lies about that business unhindered?
But it is something that needs really careful thinking about. Really careful. The cafe (in Portland maybe? I can't remember now) that was accused of 'racism' for objecting to a couple of black guys shoplifting pretty much had their business shut down when the activists and the local university spread unfounded claims. It was only fair that they were able to seek redress against this injustice (they won their court case and were awarded significant damages).
On the other hand, we could think about how a much larger entity, say Pfizer, could wield their corporate power and this kind of legal redress to shut down any criticism of their products, for example.
It's something, like I said, that needs really, really careful and precise thinking about how sensible protections for individuals and free speech are jointly managed.
I want to be a free speech 'absolutist' but I can think of too many edge cases, grey areas, where I'm not 100% comfortable with being able to defend it. What about if someone publishes a manual on how to successfully groom kids? And offers techniques for maximizing the chance of avoiding detection? My gut tells me I don't want that kind material to be made widespread.
I'm OK with a framework that seeks to maximise freedom of speech but does criminalise certain kinds of speech. But here's the rub - the danger here is that we end up with 'mission creep' and more and more kinds of speech get classed in the 'criminal' bin. We're seeing that happen on an accelerating scale with 'hate' speech, for example.
One thing's for sure though, if you're going to criminalise speech at all, then the bar to pass from 'free speech' into criminality should be set pretty high.
legal restrictions is not the same as legal consequences.
a reasonable system of civil law is more than adequate to deal with speech issues.
"tort"and "injunction" and "compensation for damages" come to mind.
problem for the moment is that in the usa there is no reasonable system of civil law.
as was proved once again with the alex jones case....
Yeah - I'm probably getting things a bit muddled up with regards to the difference between 'restrictions' and 'legal consequences'.
I'm still trying to work out my own position on this (and have been for some time). I get the point with an absolutist position, but I'm still not 100% on board with that because of the 'grey areas' I can think of. I would probably say I'm a 99% free speech absolutist haha (which of course makes not a lot of logical sense because, by definition, if one is in favour of some limits to free speech then one is not, technically, in favour of free speech).
But if we are going to do the kind of fence-sitting I suggest, then the fence needs to be fucking high and very uncomfortable to sit on. If we're going to limit/restrict speech at all then it needs to be for really, really bloody good reasons.
But what we're seeing at the moment goes way beyond any proportionate and reasonable controls. People are *causally* linking criticism of gender ideology with the recent awful shooting in the LGBTQ bar and calling for GC accounts to be shut down. I don't know how to adequately draw the line when it comes to what speech to 'control' which is why if I had to choose, right now, I would opt for an absolutist position as being less harmful than one in which controls are too rigorous.
It's a mess - and my thoughts on this are a bit of a mess. Free speech (or as close as we can get to it) is really vital.
our dilemma: the only speech that needs to be controlled is the one promoting the control of speech...
Could add a couple of things, examples we used in school:
Doctor - patient confidentiality; should it supercede free speech? If so, how is the rule to be written? If a third party spreads details from a patient's journal, is that a crime or not? And so on with the details in that specific case.
What with a priest hearing a confession, does the priest then have the right to speak freely about what was said (not talking about the church's stance but the law)? What if someone confesses to a heinous crime - does the priest then have no obligation to report this? And why should priests of any denomination have special rules at all, for anything? Does that mean anyone claiming their norms are granted by some deity or other also receives legal privileges based on that claim? And so on.
Or teacher-student confidentiality, with which I'm personally familiar. We were instructed to always preface serious talk with a student suspected to be in trouble or have problems (such as an abusive home environment) with that we as teachers have confidentiality, but also an obligation to report certain things to proper authorities. Tricky, when you want the student to open up so they can get help.
It's easy to take the absolutist stance. Here's an actualexample from swedish debate on this from a few years back:
Drawings picturing child pornography. Swedish libertarians, who are free speech absolutists, argued that this does not constitue child pornography, since it doesn't depict an actual event, and that freedom of speech and of artistic expression trumps and supercedes the absolute ban on child pornography (only people dealing with it in a professional capacity may look at or possess it at all, and only by dispensation from a prosecutor if it is part of research or an investigation).
Needless to say, public support for the libertarian position was zero, and it was ruled in court - with prejudicial status - that the medium as such does not matter. The act and nature of the image is what counts.
For a different take, swedish defamation and libel laws have no requisite that the allegations made are false or distorted with intent to mislead, only that the person filing the complaint has been "disproportionately adversely affected"; needless to say, this law is being used to silence citizen journalists and political opposition when establisment politician's crimes and emabarassments are made public.
It ain't that clear cut, is what I'm saying. There's lots and lots of fiddly bits.
free speech is about the government not interfering with speech.
what people agree to in their relation to each other has nothing to do with free speech.
The governement is made up out of people.
And no, free speech is not about governement interference only.
You only pick that stance to avoid having to actually deal with and have an opinion on how tangled the issue is.
who the fuck do you think you are, to tell me why i say what i say.?
a teacher that thinks he can berate me?
i have had individuals like you for breakfast, sonny.
go back to playing with your marbles in your mother's basement and come back when you have something worthwhile to bring forward.
That is why they are doing this. Our first amendment is first for a reason. When you have censorship, you no longer have a representative form of government. That our government has a direct hotline to these so called "private" platforms is a serious problem and I am afraid there is no judge in the country who wants to go against our DOD. But that is what must be done. In addition, we did it with AT&T and need to do it now. We need to legally declare twitter, facebook, all social media including you tube and instagram PUBLIC UTLITIES...and they need to be broken up.
Where are the politicians who have not been blackmailed who will stand up for us?
Now, there's an idea.
Well you don't know how many of those pro-censorship votes were bots. Perhaps a great many indeed.
But as I've said many times, clearly many people today do not really care about the "system" at all. They want what they want, right now. They want to hurt people they dislike, right now. What happens tomorrow, whatever, they can't think that far ahead.
Good point David,
I did wonder about the 'bot' issue - but don't know enough about it, or how widespread it is.
And yes, some Turkeys, it seems, really do vote for Christmas
There is only one book and one truth and that is the Quran, is a very common opinion both historically and today, among hundreds of millions of humans.
That's the logical end-point of today's trend. Well, not necessarily actual islam (though given the colonisation of Europe...?) but essentially the same thing where the EUSSR's word replaces the Quran as the one and only truth.
This woke stuff really does look more and more like an extreme religion every day with the modern-day equivalent of burning at the stake for heresy.
It's funny that our Western governments seem to think Twitter is a bigger threat than Tik Tok.
With that said, Trump's popularity and support jump when people are mean to him and he's muzzled. I'm optimistic that the poll's 48% must have consisted of more than a few Trump fans who realized he's at his best when he's being attacked and suppressed. (Not that I don't agree with you that the first amendment shouldn't be on any ballot.)
I see this as simply:
Do not speak a lie.
Do not listen to a lie.
Do not repeat a lie.
A lie is a lie.
It takes an enormous amount of energy to create and propagate.
The Truth, however is actual.
It is real and known.
It cannot be truthfully denied as fact.
I learned this when I was four years old.
All this censorship and propaganda is aided and abetted by that law that Obama signed that allows the US government and it's enablers to create and disseminate propaganda, i.e. : LIES.
Reverse that law, and Truth will be able to reassert itself without so much difficulty.
100%! What the Constitutional rights suppressors don't seem to understand is that social media platforms are the 'public squares' of today's era. The public spaces in ancient civilizations like Rome, Athens, etc where the people would gather to debate important societal and political issues. Because FREE AND OPEN DISCOURSE IS ESSENTIAL TO DEMOCRACY (I know, I know, we are not a *true* democracy. But still...).
And the "private companies can do whatever they want" argument has no merit when government de facto controls the content by way of controlling the behavior/policies/practices of those so-called "private" companies.
This is what we need to emphasize to the Wokerati.