site banner
PaperclipPerfector  10mo ago (text post)   30488 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 3, 2023

This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.

Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.

We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:

  • Shaming.

  • Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.

  • Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.

  • Recruiting for a cause.

  • Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.

In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:

  • Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.

  • Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.

  • Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.

  • Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.

On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.

6
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

The Donald Trump-appointed judge’s move could undo years of efforts to enhance coordination between the government and social media companies. For more than a decade, the federal government has attempted to work with social media companies to address criminal activity, including child sexual abuse images and terrorism.

I thought we were talking about protected speech?

The Donald Trump-appointed judge’s

Confirmed 98-0 by the senate. This guilt by association for judges is ridiculous. Yes, Republicans also appoint judges when in office. No, those judges are not uniquely compromised.

Ah, I get it now. "Trump-appointed judge tries to stop White House cracking down on child porn online" is a rallying cry for the next election. Save Democracy Which Dies in Darkness Now, Vote Them In To Get Them Out, Vote Blue For Great Justice messaging.

It's an easy way to score some points. Mention who appointed the judge when it was a political opponent and the judge is doing something controversial or something you disagree with. Otherwise, keep silent. Everyone will quickly get the impression that such judges (in this case, Trump-appointed) are uniquely compromised and highly political bad actors. It's like a superpowered version of Cardiologists and Chinese Robbers.

There is certainly plenty of pro-terrorism speech which 1) violates social media companies' terms of service; but 2) is protected speech. Ditto re plenty of speech that advocates violence, and plenty of speech which advocates adult sex with children. The injunction prevents the govt from flagging such posts.

This isn't exactly the most compelling parade of horribles. Even for the central case, that the FBI's employees can't take time away from stopping actually child-abusers to report not-child-abusing creeper accounts is... not obviously a horrible thing. Even for actual 'advocacy of violence', Reddit's pretty happily demonstrated that the things that can be reported and the things that should be spending any of the DoJ's time might as well be two disjoint circles. And there's a ton of non-central cases, here.

((That's separate from my general skepticism about government agencies obeying court orders like this. Contra your recent arguments, I don't think we'd see a bunch of DoJ employees go to jail if they ignore this court order while it's getting appealed and before it is stayed or overturned; I don't think we're even going to see serious efforts by DoJ attorneys to warn employees that they may be covered by the injunction.))

It isn't meant to be a parade of horribles. It is merely meant to demonstrate that speech can be protected, yet at least potentially contribute to criminal activity. As I said elsewhere, I think social media companies should be barred from censoring protected speech.

Advocating for criminal activity is, uh, usually not a criminal activity. Protected speech is by definition not criminal activity.

the federal government has attempted to work with social media companies to address criminal activity

The point is that there is all sorts of protected speech that increases the likelihood of criminal activity. Flashing gang signs, for example, as well as all sorts of advocacy of crime. As well as, possibly, sharing animated pictures of fictional children having sex with adults [edit: I say "possibly" because I don’t know if that actually encourages recipients to share actual child porn]. Heck, even agreeing with another person to commit a crime is generally not itself a crime; more is usually needed.

Nevertheless, attempting to censor those typs of speech is "addressing criminal activity," specifically, it is an attempt to reduce the incidence of crime, which is why social media companies do not allow it, and why many other countries censor or punish that type of speech.

Hence, preventing govt from notifying a social media company about speech which is both protected speech and which increases the risk of crime X does indeed hamper the govt's ability to address crime X. Please note that I am not advocating that the govt should do that. To the contrary, I believe that social media companies should be forbidden from censoring users' speech which is protected from govt censorship. But I am not going to pretend that such a policy would not make crime prevention more difficult.

Hence, preventing govt from notifying a social media company about speech which is both protected speech and which increases the risk of crime X does indeed hamper the govt's ability to address crime X.

The government suppressing such protected speech itself instead of informing a social media company about it also hampers the ability of the government to address crime X. Doesn't this policy also make crime prevention more difficult?

Yes, obviously. Just as the Fourth Amendment hampers the ability of the the government to fight crime. And the Fifth Amendment. And the Sixth Amendment. That is the price of having civil liberties. As always, I will quote Justice Scalia at the oral arguments in Maryland v. King:

Katherine Winfree: Mr. Chief Justice, and may it please the Court: Since 2009, when Maryland began to collect DNA samples from arrestees charged with violent crimes and burglary, there had been 225 matches, 75 prosecutions and 42 convictions, including that of Respondent King.

Justice Antonin Scalia: Well, that's really good. I'll bet you if you conducted a lot of unreasonable searches and seizures, you'd get more convictions, too. [Laughter] That proves absolutely nothing.

You seem to think I am advocating for social media censorship, when I have said the exact opposite.

I for one appreciate the nuanced take here. Even in this forum, there a distressingly large number of people who are unable to admit that their policies come with any tradeoffs whatsoever.

The Washington Post going back to its roots as the Democratic Party rag is nothing surprising. But taking this claim at face value: if the Feds being able to prevent CP and terrorism also means they can and will engage in political censorship, then it is good that the Feds are blocked from preventing CP and terrorism.

Doesn't matter much, though; this ruling won't stand, it's too sweeping for higher conservative courts, and any leftist court would just reject it entirely.

Can you just "reject" a SCOTUS ruling? I was under impression that's not how things are usually done in the common law system, but who knows, these days...

Ask the ninth circuit.

They can and often do ignore, or exploit any plausible workaround.

This isn't a Supreme Court ruling, it's a preliminary injunction from a US District Court judge.

Supreme Court rulings aren't usually "rejected", just re-interpreted to say whatever the lower courts want them to say until a more friendly SCOTUS comes along. If no more friendly SCOTUS comes along, you get stuff like Bruen or SFFA, but the lower courts can keep it up indefinitely.

Oh, sorry, you're right, I was thinking about other much discussed SCOTUS rulings and kinda mixed it up. But since it's an injunction against Federal Government, the other courts don't have much space to intervene then? I mean, they can refuse to do the same, but as I understand, one federal judge is enough.

The order can be appealed in the normal way; to a circuit court panel, to the circuit court en banc, and to the Supreme Court. The Fifth Circuit is pretty conservative, but as I said it's quite likely even a conservative court won't uphold the order.

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats