Freedom of thought and speech vs morality

[oops_ur_dead]

Keep in mind I more or less agree with you, but such a public utility social network would have to be designed in a fundamentally different way to existing social networks for this to work, IMO. I don't think forcing free speech on social networks with the model of Twitter or Facebook would be great, the main issue being the vast disparity in how much of a reach individual people have. I don't know what the solution for that is, though.

[rumox]

There are no doubt be dilemmas to address when considering a public social media platform. There are no doubt gaps when trying to apply laws that were created before the rise of social media and even the internet itself to an environment with them. I also don't want to pretend that I am an expert and have spent years researching when in reality it was a thought I had when loading my washing machine.

[BananaCucho]

Fair point on the first two. They were a bit extreme maybe, though I can think of other, more moderate examples. What about someone convincing others of their genuine belief that a hurricane about to hit their city was a hoax, encouraging people to risk their lives by staying in their homes? Or maybe someone publicly posting suicide method success rates in areas with mentally vulnerable people? How about someone spreading images of a victim of violent crime in places where their family might see them?

The third is something that has already happened in the real world. Not sure about Australian law, but there was actually a subreddit that was exactly what I described (plus even worse offshoots, like near-sexual images of dead underage girls' corpses) that didn't run afoul of US law, and was probably the first major example of reddit censoring a community that wasn't actively breaking the law.

This is already allowed on public radio. You're probably referring to the same thing I'm thinking of, no way thats a coincidence lol

[oops_ur_dead]

There are no doubt be dilemmas to address when considering a public social media platform. There are no doubt gaps when trying to apply laws that were created before the rise of social media and even the internet itself to an environment with them. I also don't want to pretend that I am an expert and have spent years researching when in reality it was a thought I had when loading my washing machine.

Yeah fair enough, just trying to provoke thought on how much free speech is a good thing and what the limitations of an idea like that are. As I said, a huge issue I have both with the current system and any proposed ones is the disparity in reach a person has. If you have some social media influencer or idiot politician tweeting about some sort of crackpot theory about vaccines or whatever, they're going to reach (and convince) a whole lot more people than the scientist who conducted studies and is most qualified to talk about the topic could ever hope to reach, just because he doesn't spend his time becoming a social god. That's a form of soft free speech suppression. The two have just as much free speech, but the latter is effectively censored.

This is already allowed on public radio. You're probably referring to the same thing I'm thinking of, no way thats a coincidence lol

I'm actually not I pulled that example out of my ass lol.

[BananaCucho]

I'm actually not I pulled that example out of my ass lol.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/money...nts/654353001/

[rumox]

That's why I wasn't that fussed about the fact check Twitter did. I didn't like that it was them doing it and I will always, always question their motive tho. If a public platform could somehow utilize a "to know more" link to credible sources of a topic a user puts forward in a fair and comprehensive matter I think anyone logical will be on board with it. How to implement that in a fair way with as less bias as possible is beyond me, but it's a good avenue to explore.

[yzb25]

I know I said I wouldn't jump back in here, but I wanted to say that I 100% support this POV.

There would probably still be a criteria for marking/blurring certain things "nsfw", but ad free and used as a public service and not as a means of profit would mean that it would not be allowed to be censored.

@yzb25 yeah social media sites like Twitter and Facebook are a giant source of information, but first and foremost they are a business. Which is why they advertise. They exist to make money. Decisions they make affect advertising, so they are going to do what they feel maximizes those profits.

I agree with this. I also like the idea of a public social media platform, if such a thing could ever survive the political attacks lol.

Fair point on the first two. They were a bit extreme maybe, though I can think of other, more moderate examples. What about someone convincing others of their genuine belief that a hurricane about to hit their city was a hoax, encouraging people to risk their lives by staying in their homes? Or maybe someone publicly posting suicide method success rates in areas with mentally vulnerable people? How about someone spreading images of a victim of violent crime in places where their family might see them?

The third is something that has already happened in the real world. Not sure about Australian law, but there was actually a subreddit that was exactly what I described (plus even worse offshoots, like near-sexual images of dead underage girls' corpses) that didn't run afoul of US law, and was probably the first major example of reddit censoring a community that wasn't actively breaking the law.

It's interesting that you bring this up. It reminds me of one time I tried to play devil's advocate in another free speech argument by suggesting the press should not be allowed to publish the identity of shooters and go into their backstories or the details of suicides and their backstories, which have been respectively shown to greatly exacerbate the rate of shootings and suicides respectively. Out of curiosity, would you also support that?

Also, bear in mind that even if the internet provides new scale, a lot of these things are issues that already exist. Like, one could distribute graphic photos in public, mail disturbing content to the families of victims of violent crime, exc. I would be very surprised if, at the very least, there weren't already-existing laws in most developed countries that could be tweaked to include the next generation of harassment and anti social behaviour on social media.

[yzb25]

The public social media platform thing is an interesting shout. You should try pondering other profound questions while loading your washing machine lmao

It could, in theory, be less pervasive than social media in the retention sense. Like, social media sites carefully develop their algorithms to manipulate your emotions to keep scrolling for content. There wouldn't be the same incentive to do such a thing on a public platform.

[oops_ur_dead]

It's interesting that you bring this up. It reminds me of one time I tried to play devil's advocate in another free speech argument by suggesting the press should not be allowed to publish the identity of shooters and go into their backstories or the details of suicides and their backstories, which have been respectively shown to greatly exacerbate the rate of shootings and suicides respectively. Out of curiosity, would you also support that?

Ideally the press would be set up in such a way that they wouldn't have incentive to do this, in the name of getting clicks or whatever. I don't know if I'd support an actual law against this.

[naz]

What do you guys think about this lmaooaoaoao

https://www.independent.co.uk/life-s...-a9545831.html

[secondpassing]

What do you guys think about this lmaooaoaoao

https://www.independent.co.uk/life-s...-a9545831.html

Interesting. Larger Twitter accounts have more humans to moderate tweets while smaller accounts are just handled by the algorithm. Interesting but no special thought pops up into my head.