There seems to be a recurring fallacy on TechDirt that supporting freedom of speech means revealing every bit of information that one would rather keep private. It does not. Supporting freedom of speech means believing that people who choose to speak should not be silenced, not that people must choose to speak rather than remaining silent.
That may be so, but it doesn't change the validity of what I said. It is easier to redline an entire neighborhood than to check individual creditworthiness, but doing so is still redlining.
Sites like Pornhub make money, so you clearly can profit from people who are less than ideal human beings.
I think the main problem with the dedicated conservative or fascist sites is that enough people don't want places where only politics are discussed. They want to talk about cooking, and cats, and movie stars, and also sometimes politics. If a site is going to set itself up as the place where everything is about worshipping Trump, it's naturally going to attract only a tiny subset of potential users.
As for the $8 users, liberal sites like DailyKos and Talking Points Memo also rely on subscribers to stay in business, as do NPR and individual public radio stations. You can survive that way if you're careful about controlling costs and develop a decent base of like-minded enthusiasts.
People are entitled to form communities that are as open or closed as they see fit. You are not entitled to intrude into spaces that choose to exclude you.
On the contrary, I strongly believe that verified identity is a good thing. It is difficult to hold a written conversation when you cannot be sure to whom you are speaking. In the distinction I make between moderation and censorship, I would include forbidding falsifying identity as legitimate moderation.
As for data privacy (in the form of online tracking, public cameras, and such), I believe it does not matter for the vast majority of people, and that there are fanatics who are trying to convince everyone to care, and since they mostly cannot, to convince politicians to put privacy laws in place that make life difficult and annoying for everyone.
I regard the privacy nuts with the same disdain I have for intactivists (the people who are fanatics about stopping male circumcision). People become fixated on causes that don't matter, try to convince people that they do matter, think that their lives have been ruined, and generally go off the deep end. (And yes, no need to tell me that you think I'm like that too with my own pet peeves.)
Sociology and psychology try to ferret out what people think and why they do what they do. That's a lot harder and more variable and local and path-dependent than figuring out how fast a rock falls when you drop it. But sociologists and psychologists want the same imprimatur of certainty and prestige that the rock droppers have, so they do flimsy and uncertain and biased research, if not outright fraud, and rush it into publication. That's why these so-called soft sciences are much less trustworthy. (That woke gender ideologues will call their false beliefs "settled science" should make this clear.)
Demanding that people shut up when asked to do so is, of course, the opposite of free speech.
Speaking, in writing or in person, may result in people hearing things they don't like. Too bad.
I tend to respond to people who are "wrong on the internet" (as long as we're quoting xkcd). I have no illusions that I will change anyone's mind, but I will continue to point out where they are mistaken.
Responding in writing, as I do here, cannot result in "censorship by heckling" because none of my responses can silence anyone else. Of course, it is woke ideologues who attempt to actually silence speakers in person, as the "students" did to a federal judge at Stanford Law.
I am speaking freely and not being silenced on TechDirt, for the most part. Masnick occasionally censors one of my signrd-in posts, but then I just repeat it as AC.
Whether or not anyone pays attention to me, here or on Twitter or anywhere else, should rest on whether they care about me or what I say. Since I am a nobody, I would be lucky to engage double digits of people. I don't care. I say what I want to say, and people are free to listen and respond, or not, as they wish.
However, Twitter and other large generic speech platforms should not silence opinions based on viewpoint, so that people expressing "wrongthink" never get the chance to be heard on those platforms, because that runs counter to the free speech values that are foundational to the society in which they are embedded.
No. That church has the right to silence whomever it wishes, and since the purpose of the church is to worship, not to serve as a generic speech platform, there is no reason for the church to allow speakers who speak against its purpose and philosophy.
My right to speak is entirely circumscribed by the owners of the venues I choose to speak at, unless they are owned by the government. But large generic speech platforms should choose not to censor opinions based on their viewpoints, because free speech is a foundational value of the society in which they are embedded.
Large generic speech platforms should not wish to silence opinions based on viewpoint. If they do anyway, they should be criticized, shamed, or bought to get them to change their minds.
As usual, you argue with illusory versions of me who say what you want them to say. I have never asked that woke ideologues refrain from saying what they believe.
It is, of course, true that state governments may set the curriculum for their public schools, and public school teachers have no 1st Amendment right to speak as they wish as part of their jobs. Is that what you mean?
Also, as usual, my opinions are my own, and I do not care who else shares my views, who does not, and what else any of those people might say. If you disagree with them, I suggest you go argue with them.
It is an easy question to answer. The reason so many TechDirt readers willfully cannot understand the answer is because they want censorship of ideas they hate, the large generic speech platforms used to give it to them to some extent, and now that censorship has been taken away from them by Musk and Twitter.
Free speech is a foundational value of our society. The ability to speak freely allows dissent from prevailing ideas, and is enormously useful when it turns out the prevailing ideas are wrong. It is also something that people just want; who wants to be told that they can't say something about what they believe?
Because the ability to speak freely is a foundational value of our society, large generic speech platforms should not silence opinions based on their viewpoint, because that dishonors free speech. Just because the platforms have the right to censor speech does not make it right to censor speech.
I don't insist that private platforms must adhere to the same free speech constraints as are laid upon the government (indeed, that's a bad idea, because moderation for spam, topicality, and decorum is a good thing), I claim that large generic private speech platforms should adhere to the foundational value of free speech and not censor opinions based on viewpoint.
You really are an idiot, aren't you? Do you think that clipping out the essential part of what I wrote is a meaningful way to respond?
Being asked to shut up and get out is not the same thing as being silenced *as long as those asks are voluntary".
When you and Masnick and any of the other woke ideologues here ask me to shut up and get out, or flag my posts, you are not silencing me because none of those actions prevent me from speaking here. When I comment as signed-in and Masnick chooses not to let one of my posts appear, that is silencing.
Being asked to shut up and get out is not the same thing as being silenced as long as those asks are voluntary. If someone is forced to shut up and get out, then that is exactly being silenced, because silencing and censorship are the acts of the censor, silencing speech based on viewpoint on platforms the censor controls. The ability of the silenced to speak elsewhere is irrelevant. The legality of the silencing is irrelevant. Woke ideologues would like to claim otherwise as long as the silenced speech is something they hate, so that they can use the legalism of the 1st Amendment to censor free speech while pretending to uphold it.
Criticism is not silencing. Silencing is not letting the speech be heard. I have no idea why you think I'm suggesting that criticism should not be permitted, unless it's you, in fact, who are the idiot.
That xkcd talks about the right to free speech, and it's important to distinguish between the right to speak freely and the ability to speak freely. Private platform owners have the free speech right to censor speech on their own platforms, but in doing so, they impede the free speech of the people they are silencing, especially when the platforms in question are the large generic ones used ubiquitously.
The xkcd also says that "people don't have to listen" to speech they don't like. That's true to only a limited extent. If someone is speaking in a place where they have the ability to speak, someone who does not want to listen does not have the right to silence or eject the speaker (as the "students" at Stanford Law ought to have known, had they been law students instead of woke ideologues).
Woke ideologues like to deliberately confuse the right to free speech with free speech itself, so that they can hide behind the legalism of the 1st Amendment when platforms censor the speech they hate. No one has the right to free speech on someone else's privately owned platform. But in a society that has freedom of speech as a foundational value, large privately-owned generic speech platforms should not silence opinions based on their viewpoints even though they are allowed to do so.
Well, now. A TechDirt post that I wholeheartedly agree with in every respect. Good job!
There seems to be a recurring fallacy on TechDirt that supporting freedom of speech means revealing every bit of information that one would rather keep private. It does not. Supporting freedom of speech means believing that people who choose to speak should not be silenced, not that people must choose to speak rather than remaining silent.
That may be so, but it doesn't change the validity of what I said. It is easier to redline an entire neighborhood than to check individual creditworthiness, but doing so is still redlining.
Sites like Pornhub make money, so you clearly can profit from people who are less than ideal human beings. I think the main problem with the dedicated conservative or fascist sites is that enough people don't want places where only politics are discussed. They want to talk about cooking, and cats, and movie stars, and also sometimes politics. If a site is going to set itself up as the place where everything is about worshipping Trump, it's naturally going to attract only a tiny subset of potential users. As for the $8 users, liberal sites like DailyKos and Talking Points Memo also rely on subscribers to stay in business, as do NPR and individual public radio stations. You can survive that way if you're careful about controlling costs and develop a decent base of like-minded enthusiasts.
People are entitled to form communities that are as open or closed as they see fit. You are not entitled to intrude into spaces that choose to exclude you.
On the contrary, I strongly believe that verified identity is a good thing. It is difficult to hold a written conversation when you cannot be sure to whom you are speaking. In the distinction I make between moderation and censorship, I would include forbidding falsifying identity as legitimate moderation. As for data privacy (in the form of online tracking, public cameras, and such), I believe it does not matter for the vast majority of people, and that there are fanatics who are trying to convince everyone to care, and since they mostly cannot, to convince politicians to put privacy laws in place that make life difficult and annoying for everyone. I regard the privacy nuts with the same disdain I have for intactivists (the people who are fanatics about stopping male circumcision). People become fixated on causes that don't matter, try to convince people that they do matter, think that their lives have been ruined, and generally go off the deep end. (And yes, no need to tell me that you think I'm like that too with my own pet peeves.)
Sociology and psychology try to ferret out what people think and why they do what they do. That's a lot harder and more variable and local and path-dependent than figuring out how fast a rock falls when you drop it. But sociologists and psychologists want the same imprimatur of certainty and prestige that the rock droppers have, so they do flimsy and uncertain and biased research, if not outright fraud, and rush it into publication. That's why these so-called soft sciences are much less trustworthy. (That woke gender ideologues will call their false beliefs "settled science" should make this clear.)
Demanding that people shut up when asked to do so is, of course, the opposite of free speech. Speaking, in writing or in person, may result in people hearing things they don't like. Too bad. I tend to respond to people who are "wrong on the internet" (as long as we're quoting xkcd). I have no illusions that I will change anyone's mind, but I will continue to point out where they are mistaken. Responding in writing, as I do here, cannot result in "censorship by heckling" because none of my responses can silence anyone else. Of course, it is woke ideologues who attempt to actually silence speakers in person, as the "students" did to a federal judge at Stanford Law.
I am speaking freely and not being silenced on TechDirt, for the most part. Masnick occasionally censors one of my signrd-in posts, but then I just repeat it as AC. Whether or not anyone pays attention to me, here or on Twitter or anywhere else, should rest on whether they care about me or what I say. Since I am a nobody, I would be lucky to engage double digits of people. I don't care. I say what I want to say, and people are free to listen and respond, or not, as they wish. However, Twitter and other large generic speech platforms should not silence opinions based on viewpoint, so that people expressing "wrongthink" never get the chance to be heard on those platforms, because that runs counter to the free speech values that are foundational to the society in which they are embedded.
No. That church has the right to silence whomever it wishes, and since the purpose of the church is to worship, not to serve as a generic speech platform, there is no reason for the church to allow speakers who speak against its purpose and philosophy. My right to speak is entirely circumscribed by the owners of the venues I choose to speak at, unless they are owned by the government. But large generic speech platforms should choose not to censor opinions based on their viewpoints, because free speech is a foundational value of the society in which they are embedded.
It is amusing that you think you control who gets to breed.
Large generic speech platforms should not wish to silence opinions based on viewpoint. If they do anyway, they should be criticized, shamed, or bought to get them to change their minds.
As usual, you argue with illusory versions of me who say what you want them to say. I have never asked that woke ideologues refrain from saying what they believe. It is, of course, true that state governments may set the curriculum for their public schools, and public school teachers have no 1st Amendment right to speak as they wish as part of their jobs. Is that what you mean? Also, as usual, my opinions are my own, and I do not care who else shares my views, who does not, and what else any of those people might say. If you disagree with them, I suggest you go argue with them.
It is an easy question to answer. The reason so many TechDirt readers willfully cannot understand the answer is because they want censorship of ideas they hate, the large generic speech platforms used to give it to them to some extent, and now that censorship has been taken away from them by Musk and Twitter. Free speech is a foundational value of our society. The ability to speak freely allows dissent from prevailing ideas, and is enormously useful when it turns out the prevailing ideas are wrong. It is also something that people just want; who wants to be told that they can't say something about what they believe? Because the ability to speak freely is a foundational value of our society, large generic speech platforms should not silence opinions based on their viewpoint, because that dishonors free speech. Just because the platforms have the right to censor speech does not make it right to censor speech. I don't insist that private platforms must adhere to the same free speech constraints as are laid upon the government (indeed, that's a bad idea, because moderation for spam, topicality, and decorum is a good thing), I claim that large generic private speech platforms should adhere to the foundational value of free speech and not censor opinions based on viewpoint.
You really are an idiot, aren't you? Do you think that clipping out the essential part of what I wrote is a meaningful way to respond? Being asked to shut up and get out is not the same thing as being silenced *as long as those asks are voluntary". When you and Masnick and any of the other woke ideologues here ask me to shut up and get out, or flag my posts, you are not silencing me because none of those actions prevent me from speaking here. When I comment as signed-in and Masnick chooses not to let one of my posts appear, that is silencing.
Yes. Yes. Yes. Why is this such a difficult concept to grasp?
Being asked to shut up and get out is not the same thing as being silenced as long as those asks are voluntary. If someone is forced to shut up and get out, then that is exactly being silenced, because silencing and censorship are the acts of the censor, silencing speech based on viewpoint on platforms the censor controls. The ability of the silenced to speak elsewhere is irrelevant. The legality of the silencing is irrelevant. Woke ideologues would like to claim otherwise as long as the silenced speech is something they hate, so that they can use the legalism of the 1st Amendment to censor free speech while pretending to uphold it.
Criticism is not silencing. Silencing is not letting the speech be heard. I have no idea why you think I'm suggesting that criticism should not be permitted, unless it's you, in fact, who are the idiot.
That xkcd talks about the right to free speech, and it's important to distinguish between the right to speak freely and the ability to speak freely. Private platform owners have the free speech right to censor speech on their own platforms, but in doing so, they impede the free speech of the people they are silencing, especially when the platforms in question are the large generic ones used ubiquitously. The xkcd also says that "people don't have to listen" to speech they don't like. That's true to only a limited extent. If someone is speaking in a place where they have the ability to speak, someone who does not want to listen does not have the right to silence or eject the speaker (as the "students" at Stanford Law ought to have known, had they been law students instead of woke ideologues).
Woke ideologues like to deliberately confuse the right to free speech with free speech itself, so that they can hide behind the legalism of the 1st Amendment when platforms censor the speech they hate. No one has the right to free speech on someone else's privately owned platform. But in a society that has freedom of speech as a foundational value, large privately-owned generic speech platforms should not silence opinions based on their viewpoints even though they are allowed to do so.