60 years ago, it meant "protecting the rights of non-white, non-straight, non-religious people." It could mean that again someday.
Most of their issues boil down to "someone else won't promote a thing I want them to" or "someone else said a thing (about a thing another someone said) that I don't like".
I'm sensitive to the notion that megacorps have positioned themselves as a replacement for the commons, but to address the issues these folks have without making some really weird speech-policy moves, we'd need to take those same platforms out of the "promoting" game entirely, which would both kill those platforms (no complaints here, let's do it) and make them uninteresting to the people signing declarations like this. Otherwise, we're doing the equivalent of saying "it's not enough that I can hand out home-printed fliers of my op-ed on the street corner—nobody takes them! The NYT must be both compelled to publish them and prohibited from expressing their belief that these are a bunch of nonsense!"
I don't think Facebook, Twitter, Google, et c. should be taking on the role of editors, publishers, and promoters without the usual amount of responsibility, but as long as we're allowing that, I don't think it makes sense to force them to promote or publish everything or to editorially frame everything a certain way, which is exactly what these folks want.
Where do you see anything about "twitter must promote my views"? Where do you see anything about NYT, or anyone, being prohibited from publishing its own reaction?
When I search for "Twitter" I find a reference to the Twitter files, which demonstrated that governmental units communicated directly with social networks to get them to censor certain viewpoints. Shortly SCOTUS will probably rule on that, which should settle the matter of whether that's even legal (prediction: it's not).
As for "a bunch of nonsense" -- that's what free speech is: the right to spew a bunch of nonsense. And as for socials being "forced" -- it's sufficient if they follow the same rules named for the licensing of standards-essential patents:
FRAND: fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory
No, there was also the other 95% of my post.
> Where do you see anything about "twitter must promote my views"? Where do you see anything about NYT, or anyone, being prohibited from publishing its own reaction?
NYT was an example, to illustrate the role of internet media companies in terms of Old Media. I don't literally mean the NYT is one of this group's specific targets. Sorry that wasn't clear.
As for the rest, it's in the linked declaration that this thread's about. Aside from worrying about government censorship programs (sure, that'd be bad, OK) it's really the only other thing in it, in fact. The signatories don't want Twitter (and more than just Twitter, since we had the confusion above—that's an example, to be clear) to express their opinion that certain posts are nonsense, or to remove tweets Twitter doesn't want to publish. That's censorship and compelled speech. FWIW I think certain core things about how social media companies operate ought to be illegal (all the spying) or ought to shift more legal liability onto them (they are publishers, whatever they claim), such that they'd probably all have to shutter, so it's not that I love social media companies—but these folks want to compel speech and censor, it's literally what they're asking for. Meanwhile, if they don't want to force someone to promote and publish their speech for them, they have plenty of outlets for that [EDIT Like their own website—and oh, look, that's exactly where they've published this!]—yet here we are, so I guess they do want that.
> When I search for "Twitter" I find a reference to the Twitter files, which demonstrated that governmental units communicated directly with social networks to get them to censor certain viewpoints. Shortly SCOTUS will probably rule on that, which should settle the matter of whether that's even legal (prediction: it's not).
K.
> As for "a bunch of nonsense" -- that's what free speech is: the right to spew a bunch of nonsense.
Fine?
> And as for socials being "forced" -- it's sufficient if they follow the same rules named for the licensing of standards-essential patents:
> FRAND: fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory
I entirely don't see what that has to do with this. [EDIT] Actually, let me amend that: let's say we apply this rule to social media for some reason, then where's the room for their simply not wanting to publish, promote, or frame your post as you'd prefer, for any reason they choose? This is the exact thing I'm writing about! You wondered where I'm getting this from, look at your own post!
1) they can do whatever they want, for any reason, and
2) they're liable for it
Right? Like any newspaper?
Fine. I'm good with that. Also good with them being "common carriers" but they don't seem to want that, and as I wade through the ton of verbiage you've produced today, you don't seem to either.
As for FRAND: it's an aspiration, not a claim that it already applies. But as for the rest of that paragraph, if they accepted FRAND they wouldn't be a publisher; they'd be a regulated provider of a service.
> You wondered where I'm getting this from, look at your own post!
You're a walking illustration of the adage, "don't engage with kooks; it only encourages them." So I'm not wasting any more time here.
A quick look at X shows he hasn't posted there since 2021. I don't see any other social media profiles in the Google results for his name. So why is he signing this thing, if the real reason for it is to force Twitter to promote tweets or whatever?
That's just picking a name at random. I suspect there's a variety of motivations, and I think at best a handful are driven by a desire to get more attention on Twitter.
You think Steven Pinker, Julian Assange, Richard Dawkins, John Cleese, Edward Snowden, Glenn Greenwald, and Ayaan Hirsi Ali “[give] free speech a bad name”?
Most atheists are able to express their disagreement, or even opposition, to religion without expressing hatred against religion. Unfortunately, Richard Dawkins is not that sort of atheist.
I'm thankful for what Edward Snowden did. Unfortunately, even if he didn't have much choice, by fleeing to Russia he made it much easier for people to dismiss criticisms of surveillance as anti-American propaganda.
From what I've heard, John Cleese's criticism of "cancel culture" has been nuanced and reasonable. Unfortunately, a lot of people just lump him in with out of touch comedians whining that they get criticized for telling bigoted jokes. My point being; although I don't think it's fair, his inclusion is unlikely to do the Westminster Declaration any favors in terms of changing people's minds.
Most theists are not able to express disagreement with atheists without expressing hatred of atheism. Why hold the two to wildly different standards?
edit: One of his atheist-advocate co-signers (Hirsi Ali) literally an assassination bounty on her head, and here you and others are saying the problem is academics like Dawkins saying rude words. Makes no sense. Your oppression hierarchies are inverted: you side with powerful oppressors to silence minorities, because they spoke up too much.
Yes.
John Cleese, for example, is just about to start a show on a channel that he thought was a "free speech" channel. Then he got annoyed that they hired Boris Johnson, who he described as a serial liar.
Who could have seen that coming, except anyone who was paying the slightest bit of attention?
https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2023/oct/28/john-cleese-...
And he's maybe the best of that particular bunch.
There's no useful discussion of free speech that doesn't acknowledge the need to cultivate free speech by pruning repressive speech. Walled garden and all that.
For purposes of this discussion, let's talk about the origins of Covid-19 and how surgical masks had little effect on the lab-borne virus. Or we can talk about how anti-maskers' rhetoric harmed a vulnerable population, and how discussions of lab-vs-wild distracted us from what should have been our immediate concerns.
Should the government talk to Twitter about my statements to that effect?
What about forcing vaccinated pupils to share a classroom with unvaccinated peers?
Some people will share their (reasonable!) opinion that allowing unvaccinated students presents a hazard to the school population. Others will share their (also reasonable!) opinion that denying education based on vaccination status presents a hazard to the development of our kids.
These are examples! I do not want to actually debate Covid 19 shit. Instead, I'm using it as something concrete to get at the larger ideas about speech "cultivation" and "pruning", and who decides what is "repressive".
So, who's building the garden walls?
Any social media company should be able to prune to whichever degree each company wants to. And the pruning doesn't have to be about whether speech is repressive in X way. It can be as frivolous as "Ban all people who like carrots" to something as serious as "Ban people who think X about Covid". In other words, I personally don't support the Westminster Declaration beyond situations involving government coercion.
> For purposes of this discussion, let's talk about the origins of Covid-19 and how surgical masks had little effect on the lab-borne virus. Or we can talk about how anti-maskers' rhetoric harmed a vulnerable population, and how discussions of lab-vs-wild distracted us from what should have been our immediate concerns.
> Should the government talk to Twitter about my statements to that effect?
"Talk to" is very broad. In my opinion: "Hey, this post might have misinformation" is okay because it's just a heads-up, not a suggestion of an action. By okay, I mean legal under the First Amendment. "We would prefer that you take down the post" is okay because it only suggests an action. "We want you to take down the post, or we will do Y" is not okay because it's coercive. "Take down the post" is not okay because it might have a tone of finality and thus coercion. (I say "might" because determining the tone of a written text is inevitably subjective.)
"Should" the government talk to Twitter? Not necessarily, and it depends on the topic. But at the same time, not every kind of moderation-related communication between a social media company and a government should be frowned upon.
> So, who's building the garden walls?
I'm actually going to choose not to answer these questions because I am exhausted of them being trotted out as if the answer is "it's impossible".
In actuality, better thinkers/writers than I have answered them many times before because they're such obvious problems in anything but the simplest possible set of rules (the one TFA is arguing for: all speech is equal and not harmful).
I'm not the GP commenter, but I am. There is actually a so-called "wrong speech" or whatever you want to call it. Repressive speech such as open racism - we don't need that shit. Ever. And without it, we may cultivate actual free speech.
Also, you make conclusions based on bias. You can be racist and also violence free and vice versa.
Actually, I didn't assume they would be violent.
I'm not trying to be facetious or obtuse, I actually don't see how this could work. Speech is a natural right, i.e., I can speak (or not) *any* thoughts irrespective of the presence or permission of government (albeit not without consequences post-hoc). Any attempt to restrict that right proactively must (at least) border on tyrannical, and that's before we even get into how it would be decided which speech is acceptable and which must be censored. After all, even the example subject we're building this conversation around has at least two extant, incompatible definitions.
Yeah there's actually a super simple answer: it's not, and you don't. Why are you assuming I want to go into their homes to police what they say in private?
The first question (slightly paraphrased) was:
How do you prevent [the natural right of free speech] from overriding your efforts to restrict [speech in public fora] (word of mouth being the best advertising)?
He's about the only name I recognise that I wouldn't have immediately placed in the "giving free speech a bad name" category.