Almost all moderation concerns are obviously restrictions on free speech, it’s just that for several reasons people have started to shrink “speech” into “political speech within some Overton window”
For some obvious examples of typical moderation that conflicts with pure free speech , consider amoral speech like abuse material, violent speech like threats, and economically harmful speech like fraudulent advertising or copyright violations.
Extending these to things like hate speech, bigotry, pornography, etc are all moderation choices that are not orthogonal to free speech.
Now if tolerance isn't supposed to be a virtue and you aren't supposed to get brownie points for being tolerant, then fine whatever. But that isn't how people act when they misuse the paradox of tolerance, they are still looking to get brownie points while just hating on their enemies just as humans have for millennia.
You're arguing with a strawman. I just want to have a civil discussion without it degrading into racial slurs as the bare minimum. Personal attacks in general should be discoraged, but I've been around a while and my standards are low.
The psychological question of morals and tolerance doesn't seem to amount to much. I don't think anyone would ever claim the internet is full of moral actors. but sure. The ability to accept and consider multiple viewpoints is a good moral to strive to.
Hence, the paradox of tolerance: in that you must reject concepts that overall limit your ability to empathize and expand your viewpoints. dismissing information because of superficial physical features of the speaker is simply ignorant.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance
Go back to debate class
My tolerance is not performative and fuck you for strawmanning it
Like, I strongly disagree with the Biden-style Democrat. I think they are nonsense garbage centrists with nothing worthwhile to say and weak spines. But I tolerate them coming in and saying things like, "We should means test food stamps!" I also tolerate the absurd notion that somehow, Biden-style Dems are "the far left". I think it's hilariously uneducated, but I tolerate it.
I do not tolerate people coming in with sexist, racist, homophobic, transphobic rhetoric. It's unacceptable. I will shut down, block, kick, ban or otherwise remove it without any questions.
Or, are you willing to tolerate differences of perspective on this issue?
"sorry, but no to all of this: males cannot be lesbians" banned for transphobia for misgendering the second poster. Clear cut, get the fuck out if here.
No action for first and second poster.
Problem is that this is part of the huge wave of homophobia - and lesbophobia more specifically - that has arisen in recent years from pseudo-progressives. In order to uphold trans beliefs they've decided that, essentially, homosexuality is bigotry. Everything that's related to homosexuality as same-sex attraction is heavily censored and shamed.
The once common understanding that lesbians are simply female homosexuals and that you can't choose your sexual orientation is now often regarded as an attack on people with a gender identity. And no acceptance or even tolerance is given to lesbians who boldly assert their homosexuality and insist that it's entirely off limits to individuals of the male sex.
I'll disagree, I'm here for all stripes, and I guess I'd consider the vomit emoji to be way ruder than necessary for expressing a simple personal preference, but I'd tolerate that opinion being posted somewhere.
Denying trans people exist is transphobic. It's a ban in my book. If someone says, "I'd like to learn more about the differences between sex and gender... because they seem the same to me" I'm happy to spend basically infinite time teaching/explaining/dialoging. But if you come out with "only two genders" and "lesbians cannot have penises" I'm done conversing and you can get sent packing.
I'm not open to the idea that trans people are an illness any more than I'm open to the idea that gay people are an illness. No time or space in my life for that hate.
What was asserted is that individuals of the male sex cannot be lesbian. This is of course based on the understanding that lesbians are, by definition, female and homosexual. From this it is clear that no lesbian is attracted to males or their sexual anatomy.
You say that you do not tolerate homophobic rhetoric, when actually - by stating your intent to censor lesbians and their allies from asserting the fundamental facts of female homosexuality, and prioritizing the sexual desires of heterosexual males who appropriate the language of female homosexuality for themselves - you condone and encourage it.
> No-one in that conversation denied the existence of anyone.
Then go on to deny the existence of trans folks. I ain't going to reply to all your hateful nonsense. Yours is the opinion that crosses over from "I don't want to hang out with trans people" to "I deny trans people", and I don't have to tolerate hateful people.
> What was asserted is that individuals of the male sex cannot be lesbian. This is of course based on the understanding that lesbians are, by definition, female and homosexual. From this it is clear that no lesbian is attracted to males or their sexual anatomy.
> You say that you do not tolerate homophobic rhetoric, when actually - by stating your intent to censor lesbians and their allies from asserting the fundamental facts of female homosexuality, and prioritizing the sexual desires of heterosexual males who appropriate the language of female homosexuality for themselves - you condone and encourage it.
Of course people with a transgender identity exist. This is not in dispute. Relevant to the conversation I quoted earlier, it's abundantly clear that there exist heterosexual males who desire to be female, identify themselves as female, and want everyone else to play along with this fantasy by pretending that they are lesbian women.
Actual lesbian women are not obliged to accept this appropriation, though. If you censor their dissent while promoting the lesbian fantasies of those males, then you are encouraging homophobic rhetoric and are deliberately choosing to make a hostile and unsafe space for lesbians.
Go back to your wizard game or 4chan
I dont think mega-big 'public square' type platforms will ever achieve this since growth requires chasing the most passive types of consumers who need everything done for them.
Just having ‘moderation’ means the speech is not ‘free’.
while True:
requests.post(api_url, json={"username": "@jrvarela56", "message": "hello"})
Moderation is noise reduction, undesirable content (junk mail, male junk, threats, even just uninteresting content) is noise, the stuff you want is signal, usability requires a good signal to noise ratio. Speech can be either signal or noise.
Interesting world we live in then.
Anyone who pretends there is a totally morally clean way to solve this issue is naive or a liar.
By this you mean that its very easy to define a clear set of rules for moderation?
[1] Supreme Court Signals Loud And Clear That Social Media Sites Are Not Public Forums That Have To Allow All Speech: https://www.techdirt.com/2019/06/18/supreme-court-signals-lo...
I would like it to be the case that people only flag posts which they think violate the rules, but that unfortunately isn't so. People on this site (just as with other sites) treat moderator reporting as a "super fuck this guy" button quite frequently.
The bigger the claim the bigger the burden of justifying yourself. Like, I can't just stroll in and say "but Blacks being mentally inferior doesn't mean they're dumb" and leave it at that. There's been enough dogwhistles like that over the decades that that sort of driveby "well, maybe hating people is good" isn't worth entertaining without a signifigant amount of explanation.
This is the spirit of the rule behind:
>Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive.
So there is something flag worthy if you're this deep into a conversation then simply say "but bigotry isn't inherently bad".
Now if you do all that: will you still get down-voted for you explanation, yes. You may or may not get flagged depending on the crowd. You probably won't be banned unless you're repeatedly obsesses with this topic to no effect.
P.S. you can (perhaps invisibly) lose your flagging priveledges if you abuse those as well. flagging is not simply disagreement. It is basically saying "@ dang this is a comment you need to check out". You are wasting resources by using it willy nilly.
Even the US has limits. You cannot post a naked kid online, you cannot incite violence or panic (yelling "fire" in a crowded theatre). Many states won't let you post revenge porn.