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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   35016 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 28, 2022

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Kanye West is banned from Twitter. So obviously any definition of free speech absolutism doesn't include him.

Snark aside - and the anti Elon crowd is quite snarky - the whole free speech for people in meltdown or not quite mentally stable is interesting question. My approach to human rights have often been - approve of them as long as I get to define who the humans are. So it turns out that my approach to free speech is that while I will go to extremes to protect the free, I don't consider the incoherent ramblings of a drunken hobo as speech.

On the other hand while it is easy to say "Cut his access to the social networks until he has cool down, so he stop hurting himself" and probably it is the best thing to do - I can see how a policy of for your own good can be used to cull all the edgy content.

Ye's post that Musk identified as an "incitement to violence" was a swastika embedded in a Star of David, to signify how both sides should love each other. I don't understand why he'd identify that as an incitement to violence, and I think it'd have been better for Musk to just admit he's doing this because Ye is off his rocker.

Yea the pretense of the incitement principle is what offends me here, he should lean into arbitrary caprice and just say "Okay fine, no direct incitements to violence OR posting swastikas."

I agree. Honestly there's no way Twitter can remain viable to advertisers if people are posting swastikas or the n-word everywhere, so obviously there's gonna be a hate speech restriction of some kind, whether explicitly or practically. I would love a Twitter where everything was allowed except what a court ordered them to remove, but it isn't in the cards.

On the one hand, they might as well own up to it and write it into their policy.

On the other hand, it's all a continuum, and it's very easy to start by banning hate speech in the traditional sense of the n-word and similar, and end up banning anyone who doesn't agree with every element of the progressive catechism. So maybe the best way to resist is with a bit of dishonesty. Take down the n-word under the untenable pretense that it's a direct incitement to violence, and then just don't make that same mischaracterization with respect to misgendering or deadnaming or whatever.

On the third hand, I don't know how this latter approach works when you need an army of T&S people handling user report tickets. Surely there's gotta be some internal document that spells it out just to maintain any kind of consistent approach.

Take down the n-word under the untenable pretense that it's a direct incitement to violence, and then just don't make that same mischaracterization with respect to misgendering or deadnaming or whatever.

So you're arguing that a company should be intentionally dishonest and use their biases to explicitly allow one type of hate speech while banning the other?

First of all, how is that any better than how Twitter used to be? Isn't that the sort of thing that you'd want to avoid?

Second, I'd argue that your system is far worse than Twitter's old system. At least the old system had written rules and warnings instead of letting intentionally dishonest 'personal opinions' to be the determining factor.

Which of the three hands that I offered are you taking as my position? If there is a way to author a comment that is less prescriptive and more descriptive than what I did, I don't know what it is.

I don't want Twitter to ban even swastikas or n-words (or "fag" -- I'm an equal opportunity free speech absolutist). But that's about as useful as not wanting fire to be hot or water to be wet. It dies without advertising dollars, simple and lamentable as that.

So maybe the best way to resist is with a bit of dishonesty. Take down the n-word under the untenable pretense that it's a direct incitement to violence, and then just don't make that same mischaracterization with respect to misgendering or deadnaming or whatever.

I'm referencing this - endorsing intentional dishonesty to allow 'harmful' speech for some groups but disallow it for others.

I don't want Twitter to ban even swastikas or n-words . . . but - It dies without advertising dollars, simple and lamentable as that."

So advertising dollars would be your way to determine what forms of 'harmful' speech you'd allow? If old Twitter told you that they banned deadnaming due to advertiser concerns, would you support that move?

So advertising dollars would be your way to determine what forms of 'harmful' speech you'd allow? If old Twitter told you that they banned deadnaming due to advertiser concerns, would you support that move?

Simple necessity (via the brand advertising market) would be my way to determine how close the product can come to the absolutist free speech ideal, yes. If I were Musk, I'd go as far in that direction as I could without blowing up the economic viability of the product, forcing bankruptcy and leaving it in the hands of creditors, who are likely to more resemble Larry Fink in their outlook than @Home or @VelveteenAmbush.

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