Why stop, we’re on a roll
Very likely the World would be a better place if we only had happy music, happy movies, happy art. No angry art. No angry expression.
Simple expressions are different.
Look, I wish the world were pure and good. That no one had ill intent. But we know that we cannot have good things because a very small fraction of a percentage are bad people.
I don’t like having very bad people destroying freedom for everyone else.
I believe people have a right to express unpopular even odious opinions as long as there is no threat to body and life.
Unfortunately online media like Twitter give people psychological distance as well as augment the audience for kooks.
I’m resigned to believing there is no solution to this dilemma because psychopaths will ruin it for honest but brutal dissenters as well as run of the mill dissenters.
Discussions like this are frustrating, because one side frames it as though they're defending free speech from the insidious censors — except it's painfully obvious that if you push them enough, they'll admit that yes, there is some speech they're fine getting rid of. It takes a ton of effort to get back to that baseline, and the actual conversation about acceptable speech never happens.
Because if you don't support literal free speech absolutism — with child porn, spam, et al. — then you have to draw a line somewhere. By definition. And we can debate where that line should be drawn, but the debate is still between people who agree on the principle that some speech is unacceptable. Not between Team Freedom and Team Censorship.
That said, unilateral one-sided censorship is not okay. It's like Red Scare Hollywood.
My point a few rungs up was that there are many other forms of expression that are notoriously violent and misogynistic but don't get flagged by these same companies. I'm not saying I want that but I'm pointing out insistencies. Doxxing is another. It's very inconsistent how that is handled.
This thread originated with a comment saying it would be ideologically inconsistent for Pirate Bay's mantra to be "information wants to be free" and still remove schematics for 3D printing guns. My point was that a non-absolutist free speech stance is not inherently contradictory.
I'm not really interested in a full-throated debate about tech giants' moderation policies right now. But since you seem to think the censorship is unilateral and one-sided, I'd invite you to search through Twitter histories and see who was speaking out about FOSTA-SESTA, or Tumblr's NSFW ban. You'll find it was opposed mostly by libertarians and leftists — while the conservatives now wailing about censorship (and, in fairness, corporate liberals) didn't make a peep.
I'm very skeptical of the benefits of free speech. I don't think the arguments along the lines of free speech promoting truth or being beneficial to political discourse or allowing 'bad ideas' in the open to be 'disinfected' with debate are valid. But I'm even more skeptical of the state, and I do not trust it to use evidence-based methodologies. I've completely lost all faith in the whole political spectrum, particularly the left-anarchists who promote governmental and corporate censorship.
Piratebay exists largely to circumvent the law. They therefore can't really use the law as a guideline for what to censor. They have to make active choices of what illegal content is allowed and what isn't.
Twitter allows porn, YouTube, TikTok and Facebook do not
Newspaper comment sections will often moderate the word "fuck", while Facebook, YouTube and other will not
There are hundreds of dials you can tune in terms of moderation to adjust to fit the community you want to build. Apparently the Facebook moderation guide is 300+ pages long.
Parler isn't a "free speech platform" - they pretty much have a ban on porn. You'll find that most other "free speech" platforms also have hard limits (usually _stricter_ than what Twitter allow).
Try going onto thedonald and post one of the photos of Trump with Epstein, or Parler with porn, or Gab and curse Jesus[0] in a reply and see what happens
They're not free speech platforms, they're _their_ speech platforms. They have built the ultimate safe spaces for some of the worst online communities.
[0] Gab's own ToS refers to their discretion in removing content and a "God given right" https://gab.com/about/tos
Internet providers and services aren't "public forums" given their infrastructure is not a public space, but a private space they control. Whether or not someone thinks these services are "censoring" things or not isn't a real argument, again for the reason it must be a ruling authority that violates law by removing a person's speech from a given area or location, which then is censorship.
A company can't censor someone who is on their platform given the platform is owned, not ruled.
Just because it’s done by a private party doesn’t mean it’s not censorship.
It's the same for these tech companies. They are private companies and if you break their ToS for inciting violence or posting illegal shit then they have the right to ban you. You have freedom of speech, not freedom of consequences.
Well, if that "private property home" is the only place where people in your surroundings can get something to eat; and if that someone "spew at others" but says something vile quietly to his friends, so that only people actively listening in on the conversation hear it, then - maybe you should not be able to police what that person says.
Note I said internet service not a subscription to a social media service. Your internet provider may decline to provide you with email, hell the may even decline you to provide with you with DNS, but they sure as well can't refuse to route your packets or accept incoming connections.
Apple and Google were within their rights to cut off access to the App store, but Amazon were in the wrong because they are an infrastructure company. At the very least they were obliged to allow Parler enough time to transfer to new providers.
All of us here in the US are entitled and reserve the right to do business with whom we want as long as it doesn't violate discrimination laws, which focus on race, religion and things like that - not opinion about whether there are lizard people ruling the government or that an election was "stolen" because a few people made up some good stories about it but there is no actual proof that can be viewed in person...at all.
When those oligopolies act in concert or along the same ideological lines what options do you have?
E.g. the authorities can seize cash from you as has happened to store owners who went to deposit it at the bank. If every bank refuses to serve you which you claim to be their right, then why do you have laws which to criminalize cash holdings if that forces you to withdraw your cash from them and hold it in the street or at your home?
One cannot criminalize large cash holdings arising from cash payments which is okay with many people while at the same time giving banks the right to deny service.
On the other hand, there are a thousand different cloud providers; surely at least one would have taken Parler on as a customer. And even failing that, it’s much easier for Parler to run their own servers than it is for me to run my own power plant.