Freedom of thought and speech vs morality

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Originally Posted by Helz

Ideas are living things and they travel between living things. Here is a good example of it in 2 ways (Please watch that video and consider how belief structures are pushed independent of facts)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2pnpM7Yx05Q

Notice the rhetoric that builds the social issue. I could easily throw another 100 references of people that want to spell out some mix of 'cops bad, cops racist, cops evil' ect where its blatantly apparent. At this point its not about arguing about 'what' happened but rather about how people receive information. You have to not only consider the information that is available but also how the conclusion was drawn about the information.

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That video. Eww. Misinformation and how it becomes an issue is an interesting topic that does affect freedom in our societies, but getting every single member of a society, or even just a majority of people, to understand neutral fact-checking, and even more to actually do it, seems rather utopian. That does hurt our freedom, and it's part of the ways that can be used to control the masses; you can probably find a lot of very clear and obvious examples under nazism. Convincing people that "Poland had attacked Germany" is one.

How do you fight this, though? The answer comes back to the previous point: improving education and quality of life will allow people to have a better judgement and more tools to fight misinformation.

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Originally Posted by SuperJack

Whenever enough people ask me too.

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I had missed this, but I'd like that ^^

Spoiler : Yzb's big post :

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Originally Posted by yzb25

I've only just now read the thread. I'll puke a few thoughts I've had about this topic. Several distinctions can be made about how discourse can be regulated or controlled. For the sake of conversation, I'll contrive some terms for these distinctions:

-There is hard/reactionary control of discourse: This is when certain points or ideas are suppressed by some kind of punishment, either by a population or a state. For example, a state imprisoning you for espousing an opinion. A group of people getting you fired from your job via PR backlash.

-There is soft/functional control of discourse: This is when certain points or ideas are suppressed in a more functional sense - nothing is done to your person, but you are excluded from expressing the ideas in key spaces or reaching key audiences. For example, you prevented from going on a news channel and listing your top ten favourite Nazi officials, or getting kicked off of social media.

Hard control gets far more attention, because it can even (and occasionally does) apply to individuals making casual conversation. Imagine saying the wrong thing with the wrong eavesdropper and getting your job stripped from you by a twitter mob within 24 hours. The thought evokes a new kind of a social anxiety which has captured the public's imagination in recent years with "cancel culture" and the like. It's a terrifying case study in humanity's natural mob mentality that this happens.

However, in western countries, in terms of wider societal effect, soft control of discourse is much more relevant to the "freedom of mind" Helz describes. Twitter mobs ultimately only affect a handful of individuals, and attempts in developed countries by the state to imprison or fine people for speech have been unilaterally goofy in recent decades and only given sympathy to the victims of such actions. Far greater control has been exerted in developed countries through functional control - through cable news and major websites.

Within functional suppression, I will also make another distinction:

-Points can be suppressed through direct omission. This is, for example, when the principal decides they don't want a top ten Nazi Officials event at their university, so the principal cancels the event.

-Points can be suppressed through replacement. Perhaps you don't oppose freedom of speech in principle, and you would happily allow a top ten Nazi Officials segment on your news channel. However, you only have a finite number of slots in the day for segments so you decide to remove the top ten Nazi Officials segment for a segment on something more... informative. In theory you permit top ten Nazi Officials segments, but in practice you will never actually have one on your channel.

Now, again, the former gains much more attention than the latter. Because the former is a direct middle finger while the latter is more of an "oops sorry" kind of deal. Cases of college students getting speakers deplatformed for example. However, even if the latter is much more benign than the former, they both have the same effect - no top ten Nazi Officials segments =(.

So, on the subject of functional replacement, obviously a lot of it is happening in our cable news. Not just in what news stories are covered, but who is actually hired to cover the news stories. People who are complacent and don't question the wider narrative are hired / promoted in favour of those who are critical, so that discourse only happens within a permissible overton window. In practice, we end up with a cable news which does the bidding of big corporations and the state nearly just as much as a propaganda network in another country, but the population is far less cognizant / angry about it because it feels so much less aggressive.

Functional replacement also happens on social media, through the use of algorithms. In recent years, social media companies have started trying to twist their algorithms to show perspectives and news stories approved by the status quo. If you watch 10 youtube videos from some independent political commentator, your recommendations will still be flooded by BBC/CNN/Fox/exc. because youtube is trying to show you "authoritative sources".

Frankly, I also find "freedom of speech" to be a kind of crude entry-point into the larger issues. If the government were to force youtube to adopt a politically neutral algorithm and not take down political videos, that could arguably be a violation of free speech, in the same way forcing a small forum to allow people to discuss Nazism freely would be a form of authoritarianism in and of itself. The Koch brothers have spent billions funding propaganda that downplays or outright denies climate change. However, if the government were to forbid individuals or massive corporations from funding advertisement / propaganda campaigns larger than a certain financial limit, that could also arguably be an infringement of their freedom of speech. I find "freedom of mind" or "discourse control" or whatever you want to be better talking points, imo.

Anyway, hopefully this post has more value than just a slightly more concrete version of what Helz is describing lol.

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Freedom of speech is not the whole point, indeed, but it is the most critically challenged part of freedom of mind at the moment. People are not too busy trying to survive to think about such things, nor are they unable to have access to information they need to be aware of most society-related or nation-related things, like peasants in the Middle Ages. People are letting their freedom of speech become censored in the "soft way" you just very well described. And while "freedom of mind" is the goal, it is impossible to attain without freedom of speech, which is why it has to be addressed as a specific issue. As for discourse control, it's part of freedom of speech and of its issues.

Note that while "soft control" is insidiously, yet durably harmful, "hard control" is blatantly and strongly harmful. You cannot expect to have more than very little "freedom of the mind" in a society that does not recognize human rights (under the United Nations' definition) and makes use of force to remove divergent point of views. You may already have had that in mind, but I want to clarify that while soft control must be closely watched and fought in its abuses, hard control must also be closely watched, because it's at least as damaging as its soft version. No top ten Nazi Officials happen in both cases, but against soft control, you can still make noise and say that you were shut off. If you're in jail or in grave, you can't.

For 99% of people here living in first-world countries, your free speech won't be infringed on by the government. The only time it will be is if you're advocating for genocide or violence, at which point (IMO) maybe you should be stopped, or re-evaluate your life at the very least.

I think free speech is good because restricting speech is restricting freedom, which I hold to be a bad thing. Freedom of thought is also good, because it leads humans to a more generally (or situationally) beneficial conclusion about a topic. Unfortunately, some people are less capable of rational thought, or don't put in the effort to educate themselves about certain topics. I don't know the solution for this while maintaining absolute free speech. If some dumbass promotes antivax ideas and ends up getting children killed, how can that be dealt with? I'd like to see concrete, practical opinions on this.

People have been talking about marketing and media or whatever that influences thought en masse in a presumably negative way. Unfortunately, where there is free speech and gullible/irrational people, there will also be people to take advantage of them to push a narrative for profit or political motives. This is a bit of a weird thing to address because it's neither a point for or against free speech. You can say that the end result of this manipulation is stifling of free speech, but this is also almost an inevitability in a completely free society. Rather, I consider it more an argument against capitalism, because capitalism is what allows organizations outside of the government to consolidate power and resources and push opinions and ideas.

I think that attempting to censor extremist propaganda can only be so effective. You can’t cover all possible forms of extremism... people have been killing each other over ideals since time immemorial. Communism and fascism did not exist prior to 1860-1920. Who knows what the future holds? We may yet see the rise of a new extremist ideology at some point.

Besides, attempting to censor it only forces the adherents to present their ideology in a seemingly acceptable way, or to even switch to a completely separate but still equally murderous ideology. Many of the Italian Fascists had been members of the socialist party, for instance.

I thought I had replied to this. Guess not.

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Originally Posted by oops_ur_dead

For 99% of people here living in first-world countries, your free speech won't be infringed on by the government. The only time it will be is if you're advocating for genocide or violence, at which point (IMO) maybe you should be stopped, or re-evaluate your life at the very least.

I think free speech is good because restricting speech is restricting freedom, which I hold to be a bad thing. Freedom of thought is also good, because it leads humans to a more generally (or situationally) beneficial conclusion about a topic. Unfortunately, some people are less capable of rational thought, or don't put in the effort to educate themselves about certain topics. I don't know the solution for this while maintaining absolute free speech. If some dumbass promotes antivax ideas and ends up getting children killed, how can that be dealt with? I'd like to see concrete, practical opinions on this.

People have been talking about marketing and media or whatever that influences thought en masse in a presumably negative way. Unfortunately, where there is free speech and gullible/irrational people, there will also be people to take advantage of them to push a narrative for profit or political motives. This is a bit of a weird thing to address because it's neither a point for or against free speech. You can say that the end result of this manipulation is stifling of free speech, but this is also almost an inevitability in a completely free society. Rather, I consider it more an argument against capitalism, because capitalism is what allows organizations outside of the government to consolidate power and resources and push opinions and ideas.

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I may be twisting yzb25's reasoning here; if so, feel free to say it.
His point on "soft control" is very important, and it seems to be lacking from your vision. In the societies you are talking about, the government will not use hard control. However, the government and/or the media can and do use soft control. If your point is that this soft control is inevitable, that falls into the tolerance paradox Sen brought up at the beginning of this thread. While it's impossible to completely suppress control, unnecessary and "malevolent", personal interest-driven control is to be... controlled. Because that infringes on free speech while not defending it. It only hurts free speech. If you're telling me that things like the Cambridge Analytics scandal are not hurting free speech, implying there is no reason to make laws against that, then I really wonder what your definition of free speech is.

Disclaimer: Yes, I am aware that freedom of speech is only a part of a bigger picture of general freedom, call it "freedom of the mind" if you want to. But it remains an important part of that bigger picture, and without it, the "freedom of the mind" would be impossible, so freedom of speech is necessary to address.

Can the next game start? These discussions are so boring

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Originally Posted by Marshmallow Marshall

I thought I had replied to this. Guess not.


I may be twisting yzb25's reasoning here; if so, feel free to say it.
His point on "soft control" is very important, and it seems to be lacking from your vision. In the societies you are talking about, the government will not use hard control. However, the government and/or the media can and do use soft control. If your point is that this soft control is inevitable, that falls into the tolerance paradox Sen brought up at the beginning of this thread. While it's impossible to completely suppress control, unnecessary and "malevolent", personal interest-driven control is to be... controlled. Because that infringes on free speech while not defending it. It only hurts free speech. If you're telling me that things like the Cambridge Analytics scandal are not hurting free speech, implying there is no reason to make laws against that, then I really wonder what your definition of free speech is.

Disclaimer: Yes, I am aware that freedom of speech is only a part of a bigger picture of general freedom, call it "freedom of the mind" if you want to. But it remains an important part of that bigger picture, and without it, the "freedom of the mind" would be impossible, so freedom of speech is necessary to address.

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Keep in mind I more or less agree with you. I was just putting it out there that, in a free, capitalistic society, free speech can never exist. The choice is between the government controlling speech, or corporations controlling it. I would almost always prefer governments to control it.

I do think it's possible that free speech could exist under other economic systems, under very ideal and perhaps unattainable circumstances. A socialist economy with a benevolent government might decide to take ownership of state media and keep it as unbiased as possible. There would still be inherent, irreducible human bias, but in a perfect world, that's the only way I can see actual free speech occurring over the long term. Also, bear in mind, I don't think that will ever happen.

Fair, I agree with all of this. It's a bit why I think socialism (in its stricter meaning, not communism lol) is better than full capitalism... but that's another debate, although it's related.

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Originally Posted by BananaCucho

Can the next game start? These discussions are so boring

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The lack of FM really affects the users.

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Originally Posted by Gyrlander

The lack of FM really affects the users.

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If they would sign for the game, they wouldn't be affected anymore =(


Edit: All the stuff below is what happens when a thread degenerates... Stick to the discussion above this post if you don't want political AAAAAAA lol.

USA is having fun. What's with all that social media and trumps new order? Does it suit this topic well?

Should we blame the OP for the recent events?

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Originally Posted by SuperJack

USA is having fun. What's with all that social media and trumps new order? Does it suit this topic well?

Should we blame the OP for the recent events?

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Trump's recent tantrum is a direct attack on free speech, and anyone who's a pro-free speech Republican and still supports Trump probably has too much lead in their diet.

Somewhat. Twitter is trying to have their cake and eat it too. From what I have read the EO correctly calls out Twitter and social media as a whole on their bullshit. You simply can't claim to be a platform free of liabilities of the content posted, yet curate content as if you're a publisher. Social media needs to be knocked down a fair bit because the perceived notion of what most people use it for and think its for, weighed up against the direction the board members have pushed the company towards are getting further and further apart.

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Originally Posted by rumox

Somewhat. Twitter is trying to have their cake and eat it too. From what I have read the EO correctly calls out Twitter and social media as a whole on their bullshit. You simply can't claim to be a platform free of liabilities of the content posted, yet curate content as if you're a publisher. Social media needs to be knocked down a fair bit because the perceived notion of what most people use it for and think its for, weighed up against the direction the board members have pushed the company towards are getting further and further apart.

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Adding a link to a page (https://twitter.com/i/events/1265330601034256384) to one of Trump's tweets is hardly curation or censorship. Even if it was, suggesting that the government should be allowed to somehow curtail or censor that is a direct attack on free speech in America. I don't understand how there's any controversy on this.

I don't like Trump and I think majority of the shit he posts is dribble at best. But this path Twitter is walking down where they are claiming they know what is best and to trust them I don't like. For me it's the precedent it's setting, not so much the content that's being targeted to get the ball rolling. I wasn't aware of the mail in thing until I clicked that link. What I knew of is they basically quarantined another post of his that can't be replied to and you have to opt into viewing it (https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump - linking directly doesn't show what I mean).

And yes I think the last line of his tweet was terrible, but for Twitter to step in and to force context onto what he meant by it is gross. Personally I just figured that he meant that continued extreme rioting can be met with extreme riot control, aka shooting. Now Twitter is telling me he is getting a hard on at the thought of shooting people so they had to censor his post. Honestly if people think they can riot so violently without repercussions they are delusional. Yes Trump could have worded it better but its a pretty fair point of what happens in riots.

Also there was a post/thread somewhere about perception of information but I can't find it. I have lost count how many times these riots have been labeled as protests and it it's starting to annoy me. If that isn't clear manipulation of information to be framed in a certain light I don't know what is.

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Originally Posted by rumox

And yes I think the last line of his tweet was terrible, but for Twitter to step in and to force context onto what he meant by it is gross. Personally I just figured that he meant that continued extreme rioting can be met with extreme riot control, aka shooting. Now Twitter is telling me he is getting a hard on at the thought of shooting people so they had to censor his post. Honestly if people think they can riot so violently without repercussions they are delusional. Yes Trump could have worded it better but its a pretty fair point of what happens in riots.

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Twitter has a content policy that specifically bans threatening violence, which is pretty much what he was doing. People can excuse it by thinking of a multitude of possible things he "may" have meant, but I think (and many have interpreted it the same way) that it's a deliberately veiled threat of violence. In any case, Twitter has the right to do whatever they want with content on their website, which is something outlined in law and in their policy.

This is largely irrelevant, in any case, since Trump didn't even do anything in response to Twitter hiding his tweet. He did the EO in response to Twitter's fact checking link. So I'm going to address that and not the shooting tweet, because the shooting tweet wasn't even in the cards when he freaked out and had a tantrum. In effect, he had two conflicting opinions:

1) He expressed dismay and freaked the fuck out over Twitter putting the link on his tweet, and said that he wants to take action against Twitter for that. This is an extremely worrying statement that directly expresses his desire to remove the ability of companies and individuals to comment and call Trump out on his lies. If anyone actually supports or even excuses Trump on this, you need to take a very close look at yourself and your commitment to so-called "neutrality" and/or support of someone who has expressed desire to use legal force to censor individuals and companies.

2) He wrote an EO that actually removes legal protections on social media sites, meaning that (should this become policy) suing websites for their content will be easier. This seems unusual since it means that websites will actually be more legally responsible for removing misleading and violent/hateful content (like what Trump posts) but is also extremely worrying given the unprecedented number of federal judge appointments Trump has made.

To be 100% clear, the executive order was issued before Twitter hid Trump's tweet. All of Trump's actions, including the EO and desire to censor Twitter, were made solely in response to them putting a link on this tweet: https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/...55835124539392

They should ban trump from Twitter and make him use MySpace