Re:Patreon Bars Anti-Feminist for Racist Speech, Inciting Re...
by quadrangle on Wednesday January 02, 2019 @03:52PM
(#18810074)
Free speech norms ≠ free speech absolutism.
People could rightly have complained from a "free speech" position if the NYT published only left-wing letters-to-the-editor. They could also rightly complain if the NYT explicitly refused to publish a totally reasonable opinion piece (or more extreme: refuse a paid ad that was totally reasonable) because of tangential critiques of the author's statements in other contexts.
Does that mean the NYT would have to do whatever the complainers say? No. But such complaints fairly relate to the ideas of "free speech norms" regardless of the NYT being an independent business.
Why exactly? The New York Times and the wire services were once the primary venue for most newspaper publication. There was never a requirement that anyone be able to write articles for them.
The thing is allowing garbage views into "record of note" publications seriously empowers them. As an earlier article points out, youtube's algorithm is weight towards feeding people polarized extremist rants because these get responses (just the other day, my suggested "next videos" included a client change denier and Jordan Peterson for zero reason). We're looking at the result of extreme ideological polarization and these don't look pretty. A good portion of what could be called "hate speech" is pseudo-science presenting itself as science and this to someone who's (probably foolishly) expecting a bit of vetting on a large website, this pseudo-science sell is especially effective.
Moreover, a large portion of those who uses a social network know that the "open web" exists and are quite capable of cruising it. Again, by letting into a venue the naive person imagines is vetted, you have increased its momentum considerably.
The average person isn't necessary super competent at sorting modern issues. A good portion of heinous content leverages this by appearing respectable and being the web site of