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Re:Pushing the whole company into the past on purpose by thenaturalist on Sunday January 12, 2025 @07:19PM (#42678521)
Like any freedom in an interconnected society, freedom of speech and expression is not absolute, but limited when it infringes on other rights: right not to be insulted or discriminated against.

It's really a rather simple concept entirely void of cencorship.

In case of more interest, Kant is a good source for educating oneself:

> Kant holds in contrast that there is no innate right to unlimited freedom but only an innate right to freedom “insofar as it can coexist with the freedom of every other in accordance with universal law” (6:237).

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/kant-social-political/

Re:Pushing the whole company into the past on purpose by Diggsey on Sunday January 12, 2025 @07:26PM (#42678579)
The "right to not be insulted" is literally censorship.
Re:Pushing the whole company into the past on purpose by lesuorac on Sunday January 12, 2025 @08:11PM (#42678906)
I do think this is the wrong way to look at this.

Prohibiting slurs is like prohibiting nudity in public parks. You're prohibiting an action so that people don't self-prohibit themselves from visiting.

Re:Pushing the whole company into the past on purpose by rad_gruchalski on Monday January 13, 2025 @11:27AM (#42685202)
It starts with words. Then come books, movies, comedy. ”right not to be insulted”… feeling insulted is an emotion. Learn to deal with your emotions.

Yeah, I know… everybody is a winner and what not.

Re:Pushing the whole company into the past on purpose by lesuorac on Monday January 13, 2025 @12:11PM (#42685777)
Slippery slope applies to everything.

First they banned murder, then it was punching, next it was looking.

The problem with slippery slope arguments is that you need a slope.

---

The thing you're missing is that it's really a "you" problem. Most people don't go on the internet to read slurs just like they don't go to public parks to look at penises. You want to post slurs and so you want to remove the rules against it. The result is just going to be people not visiting 4chan.

Re:Pushing the whole company into the past on purpose by rad_gruchalski on Monday January 13, 2025 @12:20PM (#42685877)
Your slippery slope looks more like a slippery uphill.
Re:Pushing the whole company into the past on purpose by thenaturalist on Sunday January 12, 2025 @07:54PM (#42678779)
If you look up the definition of censorship, you'll find that it is not.

Censorship is suppression.

Insulting someone or discriminating against them is not supression, it's unlawful.

If that's not your cup of tea, I'd challenge you to forego any and all (!) ameneties of modern civilized society to enjoy your anarcho-freedom.

Don't pretend to be a tough one by sitting in a comfy chair and picking the raisins out of the dough.

Re:Pushing the whole company into the past on purpose by kcb on Sunday January 12, 2025 @08:06PM (#42678867)
Well once you bring law into it then you have to be accurate. Insulting someone is almost never unlawful in the US. And discrimination laws apply to specific matters for specific special classes.
Re:Pushing the whole company into the past on purpose by seneca on Sunday January 12, 2025 @08:21PM (#42678978)
> Insulting someone or discriminating against them is not supression, it's unlawful.

It is not, at all, unlawful to insult someone. Your argument is absurd.

Re:Pushing the whole company into the past on purpose by Diggsey on Monday January 13, 2025 @07:47AM (#42682852)
You seem to be very confused. Even in countries like the UK with weaker freedom-of-speech laws, there are specific exceptions to slander law for insults.
Re:Pushing the whole company into the past on purpose by bdangubic on Sunday January 12, 2025 @07:48PM (#42678731)
(un)fortunately Kant is not one of the Founding Fathers :)
Re:Pushing the whole company into the past on purpose by thenaturalist on Sunday January 12, 2025 @07:55PM (#42678783)
Way to display your pride of your own ignorance, bud.
Re:Pushing the whole company into the past on purpose by bdangubic on Sunday January 12, 2025 @08:05PM (#42678864)
heavy coming from someone who wrote freedom of speech and expression is not absolute, but limited when it infringes on other rights: right not to be insulted or discriminated against with the straight face.

your words have insulted me so imma hit up HN to have it be deleted and maybe file a lawsuit as well :)

Re:Pushing the whole company into the past on purpose by thenaturalist on Sunday January 12, 2025 @08:13PM (#42678927)
Ridicule my words all you want, we both know full well that there are legal definitions of slander and that I did not mean censoring anything but legally valid infringements.

That's what a (functioning) court system is there for.

What's heavy is blowing up a nothingburger in so many words. :D

Good luck with your lawsuit!

Re:Pushing the whole company into the past on purpose by blackeyeblitzar on Sunday January 12, 2025 @10:12PM (#42679691)
Ok so if a court system is what matters why do you support abusive censorship from private platforms that go well beyond what the law typically requires.
Re:Pushing the whole company into the past on purpose by cryptonym on Monday January 13, 2025 @06:32AM (#42682369)
Their platform. As long as they are transparent on what they are doing, they should be free to do this. You are also free to not use it.

Being deceptive is more questionable than doing your own censorship on your own platform.

Removing things you don't like without justification while claiming your platform is freedom-land would be much more problematic. Same with shady algorithm favouring specific content without transparency.

Re:Pushing the whole company into the past on purpose by dani__german on Monday January 13, 2025 @10:15AM (#42684290)
And yet the twitter files shows an interesting case, what you posit as the platform executing their own will (their platform), was in fact heavily influenced by government threats of removal of section 230 protections. Platforms should be free from undemocratic, top down influence from our highest officials, surely you would agree?

That would skew platforms far to the right from their current (2020-2024) political leanings though.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitter_Files

Re:Pushing the whole company into the past on purpose by bdangubic on Monday January 13, 2025 @02:15PM (#42687439)
have you actually read the twitter files? doubt that you did and also wrote this comment. you can also just read the above-the-fold part of the link you provided ... :)
Re:Pushing the whole company into the past on purpose by dani__german on Wednesday January 15, 2025 @09:51AM (#42711419)
Here is a better link, woth direct quotes of the source material, that back up my claim. An editorialized wikipedia article written by people who do not want the story to be true was not a good choice on my part. My apologies. I'd also suggest listening to Mark Zuckerberg's appearance on JRE if you want to get info from the horse's mouth so to speak.

[1] https://twitterfiles.substack.com/p/1-thread-the-twitter-fil...

Re:Pushing the whole company into the past on purpose by cryptonym on Thursday January 16, 2025 @06:52AM (#42724119)
Mark Zuckerberg made big claims but unfortunately he didn't provide proof, no trails of relevant threats. He blamed left for his own communication during covid but at that time Trump was at the Whitehouse. That sudden change from Zuckerberg may not be entirely motivated by genuine freedom of speech support.
Re:Pushing the whole company into the past on purpose by dkdbejwi383 on Monday January 13, 2025 @04:48AM (#42681751)
There's a whole world outside of the USA.
Re:Pushing the whole company into the past on purpose by llm_trw on Sunday January 12, 2025 @07:45PM (#42678708)
So when are we locking up everyone that's insulted Trump?
Re:Pushing the whole company into the past on purpose by thenaturalist on Sunday January 12, 2025 @08:00PM (#42678821)
You know full well that Trump is a public figure. Where I live, different protections of personal rights exist for private people, such as typically engaged on social media and public figures.

Neither is or ever was charging anyone who writes an insult online a proposed or practiced option but simply deleting derogatory comments.

Re:Pushing the whole company into the past on purpose by blackeyeblitzar on Sunday January 12, 2025 @10:11PM (#42679680)
Your notion of “private people” is entirety arbitrary and is an obvious loophole for abusing the system by depriving some of their rights.
Re:Pushing the whole company into the past on purpose by mandevil on Monday January 13, 2025 @01:33AM (#42680662)
And yet, it carries legal meaning in the US, thanks to NY Times v. Sullivan and Gertz v. Robert Welch Inc.

This is not GP's "notion" this is an actual thing under US law that the US Supreme Court created back in the 1960's. As with all rights, it depends on the country, but in the US Public Figure Doctrine (and the concept of a Limited Purpose Public Figure) are both real things, with a court deciding if Public Figure Doctrine applies to a given case or not.

Re:Pushing the whole company into the past on purpose by llm_trw on Monday January 13, 2025 @02:33AM (#42681005)
Kant must have been a hell of a philosopher that he could not only predict the laws of the US two centuries after his death, but also use them as a basis for his philosophy.
Re:Pushing the whole company into the past on purpose by blackeyeblitzar on Sunday January 12, 2025 @10:10PM (#42679673)
Insults and discrimination are vague concepts and often change over time. For example ten years ago there is no way you would be censored (banned) for calling a woman a woman or a man a man. Now, speaking biological and factual truths can get you censored because you might be insulting or discriminating. Clearly the fact that all this can change so much indicates that it isn’t principled. The only principled stance is to allow speech, even if it offends. Individuals can then make choices about who they want to interact with for themselves.
Re:Pushing the whole company into the past on purpose by jacoblambda on Sunday January 12, 2025 @11:47PM (#42680168)
> there is no way you would be censored (banned) for calling a woman a woman or a man a man. Now, speaking biological and factual truths can get you censored

You can claim this and reach to the transphobic dog whistle but these "biological truths" aren't actually true and the only world in which they are is a grossly oversimplified version of reality that ignores all of the messy complexity of how biology actually works.

This isn't a matter of "truths being insulting or discriminating". It's a matter of stopping people from using their complete misunderstanding of biology as an excuse to try and harass, other, or discriminate against groups out of prejudice.

Re:Pushing the whole company into the past on purpose by dani__german on Monday January 13, 2025 @09:56AM (#42684052)
to bring up the extremely rare occurrences of intersex people as some sort of justification for saying "male and female, and thus men and women are hopelessly useless/simplistic concepts in our world" is not a compelling argument. Biological reality exists, it defines us. No amount of socialization or education will convince a banana to write a symphony.

In much the same vein, men and women exist. We can fool ourselves into thinking a person can completely cross the divide between them, but it simply is something we tell ourselves/friends, an idea its not currently polite to deny. It is not objective reality itself.

Re:Pushing the whole company into the past on purpose by jacoblambda on Tuesday January 14, 2025 @01:18AM (#42694307)
The prevalence of being intersex/having a disorder of sex development is just as high as the prevalence of being trans. Both of them sit at around 1-2% of the population. That number may be surprising but in the majority of cases these people "pass" without the average person being able to identity them on the street.

And my point isn't to try and claim that just because intersex people exist that the terms are useless. My point is that the definitions people try to ascribe to those terms are statistically more likely to exclude other groups of people (who the definitions are not intended to exclude) than they are to exclude trans people.

Definitions that don't work:

- Defined by "passing"/looking like what society expects a given sex to look iike: Refuted extremely commonly by queer people of all kinds. Also just wildly subjective and impractical.

- Defined by chromosomes/karyotype: Rule broken by prevalence of intersex people. Additionally from a biological perspective so much more goes into sex determination during gestation and afterwards than just the karyotype.

- Defined by presence of breasts: Indistinguishable at birth and defined by hormone levels. Rule broken by numerous medical conditions. A woman is not less of a woman for getting a masectomy or double masectomy. A man is not less of a man because medication or hormone levels cause them to grow breasts.

- Defined by the presence of primary sex organs (testes/ovaries): Rule broken by numerous medical conditions. A woman is not less of a woman for getting an oophorectomy and a man is not less of a man for getting an orchirectomy. Likewise a woman who has lived her entire life as a woman who finds out that her ovaries differentiated as testes is not any less of a woman nor the reverse for a man. And both of the aforementioned surgeries are very common.

- Defined by presence of secondary sex organs: Rule broken by numerous medical conditions. Bottom surgeries for trans people arguably make up less of the share of genitoplasties performed than the numerous other reasons (recovery from trauma or disfigurement, recovery from cancer, etc). And surgeries like hysterectomies occur in up to 20% of women depending on the region. Having or not having one or more secondary sex organs isn't a reliable differentiating factor and unless you are storing photographs of genitalia from birth and sharing them with every person or organisation that want's to know your sex then this isn't a reliable method either. It's unnecessarily complex and/or it's unnecessary exclusive.

- Defined by hormone levels: Rule broken commonly by intersex people. Commonly broken by people with various medical conditions and/or medical interventions. A woman with low estrogen levels isn't less of a woman. A woman with high testosterone (such as due to PCOS which occurs in as high as 20% of women) doesn't make a woman any less of a woman. The reverse goes for men (such as men taking testosterone suppressors or blockers for diseases like prostate cancer which occurs in around 12% of men).

----

At the end of the day you only really have one appraoch and that's to just be more precise, use better terminology, and use the necessary information where it's needed.

- Government and social documents (drivers licenses, passports, ID cards, etc) should just use gender. There's no reason to use anything else and it doesn't actually benefit anyone otherwise.

- Medical records should indicate known presence/absence of organs and hormone levels. Awareness of which organs are or aren't present is only important due to care relevant to those organs and their interaction with the rest of the body. And hormone levels should be documented because the majority of medical distinctions for healthcare purposes (risks, dosage changes, interactions, effects on the body, etc) are tied to hormone levels. If someone is manually controlling or augmenting/manipulating their hormone levels that's relevant for care and it serves the patient better to be explicit about these types of things than to attempt to tie them to a single binary differentiator and make assumptions.

- Access to bathrooms, changing rooms, etc: Just let people use the bathrooms they feel most comfortable with? It's not hard, it's not complicated. If a lady or a lad is being a creep then someone can do something about it but that has nothing to do with any indicators other than "they are being a creep".

- Sports, etc: Either just divide it by gender or drop gender/sex based division entirely and divide it by skill. This is such an exceptionally small non-issue and protections against this perceived incursion have only contributed to discrimination. There is no reason why women's sports restricts competitors on their natural and/or nominal testosterone levels but men's sports do not. In competitive women's sports abnormally high natural testosterone is disqualifying but in men's sports it's a permitted competitive advantage. Additionally with regards to sports records, gendered performance differences have been rapidly closing in on a pace where they may disappear entirely within a century or less. And in particular, with non-professional sports there is absolutely zero reason for exclusionary restrictions. In those environments this is a complete and total non-issue.

Re:Pushing the whole company into the past on purpose by asdfjklm on Tuesday January 14, 2025 @01:55AM (#42694519)
So let's test this approach out. In your view, is this man a woman?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lj4V-Nme86U

Should he be allowed to whip his dick out in women's bathrooms?

If actual women complained about his presence in, say, a support group for mothers, what would you say to them?

Should he be allowed to join a women's boxing club and punch women in the face?

And so on. I'm sure you get the idea.

Re:Pushing the whole company into the past on purpose by jacoblambda on Tuesday January 14, 2025 @10:38AM (#42698535)
> So let's test this approach out. In your view, is this man a woman?

She is a trans woman. She is a woman. Within the context of medical access, from what I can gather she has a penis, she has testes, and she doesn't take hormones currently (she might but a comment she made suggests she doesn't). That gender-non-conformance doesn't make her any less of a woman.

I'm not sure what your hangup is with respect to her? She very clearly present herself as a woman. And women with beards, sharper facial features, or deep voices aren't terribly uncommon nor do those aspects make them any less of a woman. Women like Harnaam Kaur exist and they are just as woman as any other woman.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HB85apiZgFg

> Should he be allowed to whip his dick out in women's bathrooms?

Should she.

Should she be allowed to use a woman's bathroom as intended? Yes. No questions asked.

Now if someone was doing something problematic in the bathroom (flashing/exposing genitalia or breasts) and/or harassing other women in the women's bathroom then they'd need to be removed. Not because of their gender or because of their features but for the behavior. It's a very simple and straightforward concept.

> If actual women complained about his presence in, say, a support group for mothers, what would you say to them?

Her presence.

If she is a mother she should be permitted. If she isn't a mother/doesn't have children then there is an argument to be made for denying her presence there. If she has children but it was a support group exclusive to birthing parents then again there may be an argument. But more often than not those support groups aren't exclusive to birthing parents and they aren't even exclusive to women.

> Should he be allowed to join a women's boxing club and punch women in the face?

Should she.

And the answer is that it depends.

If it's at a competitive or professional level then she is subject to the rules of the club and if they require certain hormone levels to participate then that's the nature of the beast. I personally don't see it as necessary but if it's the requirements for participation then that's what they are and the best you can do is fight to change them.

Now if the club is a hobbyist or non-varsity/school club then absolutely they should be permitted to participate.

Either way whether they are technically permitted, I think they should be allowed to participate regardless of testosterone levels or anything else. Boxing is divided into weight class anyways so there's little flexibility for testosterone influencing being "bigger".

> And so on. I'm sure you get the idea.

I understand what you are saying but I just outright disagree. Trans women are women. Intersex women are women. Non-gender-conforming women (regardless of whether they are cis or not) are women.

Re:Pushing the whole company into the past on purpose by asdfjklm on Tuesday January 14, 2025 @12:17PM (#42700319)
> She is a trans woman. She is a woman.

No, he's a man who calls himself a woman. Anyone with eyes can see that, he is very clearly male.

> She very clearly present herself as a woman.

What do you mean? Is your view of women really so shallow and sexist that you when you see a man wearing a skirt, you truly believe that he's a woman?

> If she is a mother she should be permitted.

Well he can't possibly be a mother, due to being a man, and if you said that to women who complained about his presence they'd assume you were taking the piss.

Re:Pushing the whole company into the past on purpose by jacoblambda on Tuesday January 14, 2025 @09:55PM (#42706790)
> No, he's a man who calls himself a woman. Anyone with eyes can see that, he is very clearly male.

That's just not true. What even makes you think that? Facial hair is not uncommon in women, deep voices are not uncommon in women, and sharper facial features are not uncommon in women. I'm not sure what you think is so "clearly male" about her but those were the only traditionally masculine features I could think of.

> What do you mean? Is your view of women really so shallow and sexist that you when you see a man wearing a skirt, you truly believe that he's a woman?

There's no reason to be impolite. Wearing feminine clothing is not a requirement to be a woman. Nothing about being a woman requires wearing feminine clothing. Even if she was wearing purely masculine clothing she'd still be a woman.

> Well he can't possibly be a mother, due to being a man

She could absolutely be a mother, she just may not be the birthing parent. In the exact same way a cis woman can be a mother to a child even if they weren't the one to give birth to them. And likewise a father can be the birthing parent. You see this commonly with trans men for example.

> and if you said that to women who complained about his presence they'd assume you were taking the piss.

People can complain about a person's presence all they want. It doesn't make them any less of a mother and it doesn't make it any less acceptable for them to be present. If they have a valid complaint then there can be a discussion but "they look wrong" or "I don't believe they are who they say they are" aren't valid complaints.

And I'm not sure how you think these types of discriminatory complaints are acceptable? Discrimination being acceptable against trans women doesn't just hurt them, it hurts cis women as well. Especially gender non-conforming women.

How do you think a new mother feels when people try to falsely accuse her of being a man when she's just trying to discuss her experiences and learn how to be a new parent? Who does that benefit?

My stance here is not complicated. You treat people with respect, you limit your assumptions, and if something isn't clear you politely ask. And for the love of god you don't needlessly exclude people. If the fear is that a group or minority will commit some crime or transgression, then you punish people for committing the crime or transgression. You don't punish people for being suspected of being part of a group/minority you are afraid might commit a transgression.

Re:Pushing the whole company into the past on purpose by asdfjklm on Friday January 17, 2025 @12:58PM (#42741208)
> That's just not true. What even makes you think that?

Well, apart from the fact that he very obviously has a male body, the video title itself indicates this.

> There's no reason to be impolite. Wearing feminine clothing is not a requirement to be a woman.

Then why did you say that he "very clearly presents" himself "as a woman"? What exactly were you basing that on?

It's very clear that he presents himself as a man who calls himself a woman.

> And for the love of god you don't needlessly exclude people.

Agreed. Excluding men like this from women's and girls' spaces is absolutely needed to ensure that they still remain women's and girls' spaces.

The problem is that far too many of these men have no respect for boundaries, and will turn up to venues like support groups for mothers and demand entry.

Re:Pushing the whole company into the past on purpose by dimensi0nal on Monday January 13, 2025 @09:08AM (#42683546)
"you can call people mentally ill but only if they're targets of the regime" isn't exactly in line with the principles of free speech in the first place.
Re:Pushing the whole company into the past on purpose by dani__german on Monday January 13, 2025 @10:04AM (#42684147)
"The right to not be insulted" is not a right at all. if you don't like what the other person is saying, your recourse is to leave, not to imprison the other person, or some derivative thereof.
Re:Pushing the whole company into the past on purpose by DiggyJohnson on Monday January 13, 2025 @10:06AM (#42684170)
What is this “right to not be insulted”?
Re:Pushing the whole company into the past on purpose by CrimsonRain on Monday January 13, 2025 @10:49AM (#42684754)
I insult you. What now?