Non-leading title about speech

https://gab.com/a/posts/106936538508805894

German government wishes to enforce their hate speech law on a website. That website is proclaiming itself as a social network that champions free speech.
The website, so it's said, has a history/drama surrounding it with regards to spreading neonazi stuff. But I feel like it shouldn't be relevant in this discussion.
Their choice is between either banning hate speech or banning German IPs. They chose the latter.

Where do you stand on banning hate speech for the cost of having less free speech and why?

Elaboration: it's opinions about the social media hate speech law that I'm interested in hearing about.
:calix:

im all in supporting the banning of free speech of citizens who make psuedo-intellectual debate questions on a forum dedicated to lying and youtube politics

I have a wheel with a bunch of random political-esque topics, and every time someone posts another "free speech good?" thread I roll it. My personal opinion on free speech is that I support unconditional free speech on everything except for topics that have been rolled before, discussion of which which I support unequivocally banning.

This time, it's the topic of Mexican drug mules that must be banned.

I have a right to my opinion and my opinion is you have no rights. *shoots you and walks away*

I have thought about this issue at great length. After thorough introspection, I am still not sure whether we should have the free speech. In fact, I am not sure whether we should even have the free speech to discuss whether we should have the free speech. But after extremely careful consideration, I am ready to commit myself to the view that we should at least have the free speech to speak of whether we should have the free speech to discuss the free speech. So I wish to pull the conversation back to there, then gradually consider how we proceed.

Due to my immense study of this topic, my thoughts may prove too profound to follow... but do not be afraid to ask for clarification.

On a serious note, we've had a lot of these threads. I have lost count, but this is probably at least the fifth. I don't mind reading a debate, but can't we at least discuss something new?

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Originally Posted by yzb25

On a serious note, we've had a lot of these threads. I have lost count, but this is probably at least the fifth. I don't mind reading a debate, but can't we at least discuss something new?

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The problem is that dissenting opinions predominantly get pushed out of the conversation before anything meaningful can develop from it. Oftentimes free speech is the first thing to talk about because it tries to set a precedent for what is or isn't okay.

None of the below things are uncommon in the current online landscape:

-Need for Prefacing (i.e. "As a Republican, but PERSONALLY I don't agree with X.")
-Downvoting (Promoting a hive mind mentality, soft censorship.)
-Hard Censorship/Banning.
-Portraying arbitrarily what hate speech, disinformation, misinformation is.
-Portraying arbitrarily what constitutes evidence for sake of debate.
-Cancel culture, doxxing, defamation of character.
-Retroactively changing what is, isn't acceptable.
-Portraying history disingenuously.
-ad hibbity hominem

I remember a four years ago when Kyrie Irving (4.3m) started tweeting about the earth being flat and everyone mostly laughed it off at first. Then he kept up the routine a few more times until he started garnering a ton of attention from social/mainstream media and the NBA. They told him "No Kyrie, millions of kids look up to you. Saying the Earth is flat is dangerous! Listen to the scientists." And I mean, I get that. But it also seemed like they were shutting down a man's opinion (regardless of whether it was real and not just some 'stay woke' gimmick) simply because they didn't agree with it. He had anecdotally said about being in private jets and seeing that it might not be round etc. and people would barrage him with satellite images etc. It was always just bizarre to me that somebody saying "the earth might be flat stay woke" was received as inherently dangerous (as if people cannot come to their own conclusions.)

We're seeing something similar with the Nicki Minaj twitter thing right now (22.7m). Nicki's anecdote was basically that her "cousin's friend's balls swelled up after taking the vaccine- So make your own decision on whether to get vaccinated and ask questions." To be me, that doesn't seem like an unreasonable take, she isn't telling anyone what to do or not to do nor what to believe and to do their own due diligence. Kyrie on one hand made an assertion, Nicki made an observation. Within a day, a Twitter shitshow, Tucker Carlson debut, Twitter suspension all ensued and now she's being invited to the White House apparently.. (For whatever reason.)

My point is, the topic of free speech has become so redundantly abundant because it has to be. There's so much vitriol about topics like the vaccine, CRT, riots, Afghanistan, elections etc. and to me, it does seem like dissenting opinions do get pushed out of the conversation before they're able to speak. Not here, as much because we're not really like that but take a skip over to a place like Reddit and it's all around you.

-Being against CRT/BLM means you want more black people to die.
-Being antivaxxer means you want grandma to die.
-Being suspicious about election integrity means you want democracy to die.
-Being suspicious about climate change means you want the planet to die.
-Being politically neutral or center-leaning means you want dialogue to die.
-Being pro-choice means you want babies to die.
-Being capitalist means you want the poor to die.

You could write like, a thousand more of these with any flavor you want (might be a fun thread) but this is the knee-jerk reaction I've seen. Like @oops_ur_dead I'm a pretty big free speech advocate so it's kind of spooky to me how things have developed over the past few years. People have already started the "Muh Orwellian" references but maybe they're not wrong. Anyway, there's my rant on the (not) real topic.

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As far as Ozy's OP. lol they'll just get a proxy or the dumb ones will find another forum, happens all the time. I don't agree with it but Germany does things differently; Anything else turns into the publisher/platform debate and that's a bunch of legalese above my paygrade.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by yzb25

I have thought about this issue at great length. After thorough introspection, I am still not sure whether we should have the free speech. In fact, I am not sure whether we should even have the free speech to discuss whether we should have the free speech. But after extremely careful consideration, I am ready to commit myself to the view that we should at least have the free speech to speak of whether we should have the free speech to discuss the free speech. So I wish to pull the conversation back to there, then gradually consider how we proceed.

Due to my immense study of this topic, my thoughts may prove too profound to follow... but do not be afraid to ask for clarification.

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i WOULD LIKE MANY LENGHTY CLARIFICATIONS PLEASE O WISE ONE

Quote:

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Originally Posted by yzb25

On a serious note, we've had a lot of these threads. I have lost count, but this is probably at least the fifth. I don't mind reading a debate, but can't we at least discuss something new?

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The issue is that you can't discuss anything without free speech. Sadly, we probably all have personal examples in mind of unjustified free speech restriction in these troubled times, be it just "hey you shouldn't talk about politics/religion/whatever" or "this position shouldn't even be discussed, even if you're against it". The discussion is therefore very relevant, and Frinckles accurated depicted that as well.

I do agree that we could just talk about other things for a bit, though.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by yzb25

On a serious note, we've had a lot of these threads. I have lost count, but this is probably at least the fifth. I don't mind reading a debate, but can't we at least discuss something new?

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What was the consensus?

I could see both sides.

Against free speech:
-On one hand 'free speech' is often not healthy in an age where people step into conversations to 'argue their side' more than discuss a subject.
-Free speech is already limited. Its not a question of 'if' but rather a question of 'how much.' Read a story years back about a guy who posted his ex girlfriends address on craigslist or something describing a rape fantasy and asking people to just show up at her door and rape her (pretending to be her.) I don't think any rational person would say 'thats ok because free speech'
-It allows crazies to find etchother and make etchother feel like they are normal and its society thats crazy fostering conspiracy theory's which have been damaging. The election fraud one is particularly dangerous imo and I even had a conversation last night (or this morning depending on how you look at it) with a guy arguing the south just needs to rise up and separate from America. Sure its less overt in instigating potential violence than the rape post guy but it still creates that potential on a large scale.
-Establishing limits on public discourse does not eliminate the conversation. It just shifts the contentious subjects to more private interactions (which may be where its more appropriate to have them anyways)
-Some beliefs are universally taboo. If a group got together to talk about the best ways to lure little boys from elementary schools there is probably not very many people on the planet that would find that use of speech ok.

For Free Speech:
-It throws the 'ugly' side of society in everyone's face so it gets dealt with. Being able to draw attention to issues is a core function of allowing a society to evolve in the interest of its population.
-Limiting what can be said is a building block of oppression. There was a thing I read years back that put that with disarming a population as the 2 key steps a nation must take before true oppression is viable. So long as a society can speak about the wrongs going on or has the ability to fight in their defense its orders of magnitude more difficult to oppress them.
-Enabling people to speak their minds allows us to know who we are dealing with. I would rather know where I stand with people and what their morals are than live in ignorant bliss.
-Limiting free speech with laws / rules is absurdly difficult. There is a reason its always done by preventing access as opposed to processing punishments for the individual and the arbitrary nature of social interactions makes it hell to be fair and objective. Just ask any forum Mod : P

On a basic level accepting free speech is already limited (and justifiablly so) shifts the question from 'should it be limited' into 'how should it be limited.' The largest issue I see on hate speech is what do you qualify as hate speech? Racism is wrong but it it only wrong when talking about some races? Who gets to decide if someone is speaking in good faith and what subjects are declared 'too taboo to speak about?'

I personally feel like its an issue that should be tackled on the smallest level possible but I do support limitations on free speech.

Freeze Peach while ostracizing the indecent.

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Originally Posted by Renegade

Freeze Peach while ostracizing the indecent.

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"The indecent" is an incredibly large and manipulable standard, though. Is doubting the existence of Jesus, or, God forbid, believing the Party may not always have our comrades' best interest in mind "indecent"? "Corrupting youth"? Some would answer "yes". Of course, those examples are obvious ones, but there are cases when it's much more complicated. See abortion controversy in the US, for example: is it indecent to either speak of murdering babies (on anti-abortion side), or is it indecent to imply women do not control their own body (pro-abortion side)? Pretty sure you can find people around you who would answer "yes" to one of these questions.

I like this sites take on free speech.

It’s very tolerant while encouraging that there is a ‘correct place’ for different things and is respectful of people’s views when presented in good faith. Social pressures are used more than powers/punishments to resolve issues and when things go too far topics are simply closed.