I think moderation should be about the words that are being said, not the ideas that are being discussed.
A free speech platform should allow a wide range of topics, but it's not expected to stand for all manner of trolling and bad faith argumentation. I think that conflating the two is tripping a lot of people up in the debate about the topic.
In the end you end up with the same problem. All the "exterminate the jews" types go to the free speech platforms at which point everyone else leaves, even if the people with the ideas that aren't liked are using respectful language. It's not just the bad faith and trolling that make people want to leave the site, it's the base level ideas of the people who have been moderated off other platforms.
> The moral of the story is: if you’re against witch-hunts, and you promise to found your own little utopian community where witch-hunts will never happen, your new society will end up consisting of approximately three principled civil libertarians and seven zillion witches. It will be a terrible place to live even if witch-hunts are genuinely wrong.
I think that a platform where people expect the ugly ideas to be debated (in good faith) will have the users that are willing to do that[1].
Not every platform needs to have _all_ the users. I know that it's a bit of an anathema on a discussion board built by venture capitalists to say that the goal of a social platform should not be to maximize the amount of users and engagement, but here we are. I think optimizing your service for "everyone" is a bad strategy in competing with existing social networks, especially coming from an "indie" background. Not that Parler is exactly indie.
[1] I'm saying this as someone that is working towards a discussion platform that targets smallish to medium communities formed around a common interest. In this world if moms wanting to share their latest knitting project are excluded from a service that targets free speech people, that's fine, there can be a knitting community out there also for them. Having these two communities intermingle by using something like ActivityPub is a way to keep "the network effect" but keep them separate enough.
> I think that a platform where people expect the ugly ideas to be debated (in good faith) will have the users that are willing to do that[1].
This does not actually...happen. At least not over the medium and long term. What actually happens, and you can see this in practice, is that decent people are not particularly interested, over long periods of time, in arguing that no, there is no globalist (read: Jewish) conspiracy to take over the world. They lose interest almost immediately, while the frothers intellectually crossbreed and turn from one particular flavor of bigot into all the flavors of bigot.
The problem isn't, as you are characterizing, that a platform must have "all the users". The problem is that this strategy hyperconcentrates relatively anodyne conservatives into literal-not-figurative fascists, and has been doing so for quite a while. The active creation of intellectual cul-de-sacs, of epistemic closures for hateful beliefs, is a major factor in why we're where we are right now.
I disagree with you. I think that the phenomenon that you described (which exists on most social platforms that are advertising themselves as "free speech") is not present everywhere and my impression is that the problem is exactly with the "chase all the users" mentality.
One example that I can think of the top of my head is Scott Alexander's blog, where I saw opinions put forward (most of the times in a respectful manner) that ranged from extremely egalitarian to extremely libertarian. I am entirely sure that some of the people posting there have views that veer into "one flavour of bigot" or another, but because the community as a whole would rise against the most objectionable types of ideas that one could put forward, they never do it. To me that is a healthy community and I hope it can be achieved in other places without needing an "alpha-personality" at the center for people to gather around.
I personally would dismiss you as a lunatic and racist in both cases and move on with my day. However I see no reason why you shouldn't be able to make a fool of yourself if you so choose.
Making you feel like a martyr because you are being "censored" is worse in my opinion than allowing you to express your points of view and hopefully be receptive to counter arguments.
I think you're trivializing the issue quite a bit. But yes, I dislike the paternalism of considering everyone else on the internet stupid and incapable to making informed decisions when facing questionable points of view.
I'm not qualified to speak with any authority about this issue, but my opinion is that people that are willing to shoot other people most likely have other incentives than reading a singular's dude online hate ramblings. The problem lies with the fact that they gets ostracized and _all_ they are able to read are the hateful things. If you go through the thread above, you'll see that my stance is the complete opposite of that: let's allow people say the "bad" things and balance them out with other peoples' "good" things.
This theoretically would ensure that this person is not exposed to only hate and negativity, and will hopefully make a better decision than ending others' life and their own.
Forcing this unbalanced individual to retreat into a corner of the internet where his opinion on other people goes unchallenged is unquestionably A BAD THING, and I doubt I'll change my mind on this fact any time soon.
I will not change my mind about this one thing, but I change my mind all the time about other things when I'm being presented information that challenges my point of view. It's a bit childish to veer into ad-hominem and take my words out of context just to try and keep the upper hand. :P
they get arrested. The amount of violence that could be attributed to this sort of thing is so minuscule its barely a rounding error in overall figures. Just like school shootings it's extremely publicized but when it comes to the actual numbers it's nothing.
On another note I'd go as far as to say that prohibiting it will make them even more radical and entrenched in their beliefs, germany has extremely strict anti-nazi laws and yet never stopped having neo-nazis, much to the contrary[0]. The people who are going to go as far as real life actions will find the daily stormer or whatever other website and now he will feel like a martyr and justified of some conspiracy or whatever.
I disagree. There are limits to what ideas constitute free speech in many modern countries. As an extreme example, an idea that puts forward genocide as acceptable form of action should never be allowed under "free speech", even if it's said with nice words.
This and other examples are ruled under law in many developed countries.
Then it's not free speech. The whole point is that there are not restrictions. If it's restricted, it is by definition not free.
"Free speech" is a cool buzzword people think they can qualify for (or wish to), without the ramifications of true free speech (hurt feelings, bad ideologies being discussed in a positive light).
There are two definitions of free speech going around the internet discussion boards these days it seems. One is the legal one that has existed in our country since it was penned in the constitution, which protects you from government opression from publicly held opinions. That doesn't mean you can say whatever and expect no recourse from anyone, you have no protections from being kicked out of a private place or fired from your employer under this law, just that the State will not put you in jail or kill you over these words like other states around the world do for words. The other view is that you are allowed to say whatever you like on platforms like twitter and should not be banned. It has nothing to do with twitter. Twitter is not part of the State. People making it about twitter are missing the significance of the first amendment and what society looks like in places without protections on speech and religion from the State.
I'm not advocating for getting the government involved in forcing Twitter to allow all speech. I'm saying people need to stop continuing to use platforms that actively and publicly censor things on a daily basis, as if it's okay and normal now.
Fighting corporate-enacted censorship with government intervention is fighting fire with fire.
Freedom of speech is not a buzzword, it has a pretty good definition in the declaration of human rights and on Wikipedia:
> Freedom of speech and expression, therefore, may not be recognized as being absolute, and common limitations or boundaries to freedom of speech relate to libel, slander, obscenity, pornography, sedition, incitement, fighting words, hate speech, classified information, copyright violation, trade secrets, food labeling, non-disclosure agreements, the right to privacy, dignity, the right to be forgotten, public security, and perjury.
The fact that most people on the internet (which seem to include you) are using it wrong is another thing. Free speech only applies in the relationship between citizens and the state. It has no meaning in the relationship between individuals and the platforms they're using for communication.
You're right. Companies have the right to censor things they don't like on their platforms. That's why people should stop using platforms that are frequently censored if they really care about "free speech." Just like how people can't "free loiter" on my personal property if I want them out of it.
I don't care about an arbitrary definition of two strung-together words, whose definitions individually, are absolute. When combined, their definition is just as absolute. The speech must be free. Free is simply defined as free. Not "free, but ..." in which case it is no longer just "free speech."
> I don't care about an arbitrary definition of two strung-together words, whose definitions individually, are absolute. When combined, their definition is just as absolute.
This feels like a deeper debate than I'm capable of having, but all language is a string of strung-together words with meanings. These meanings have reached a high enough degree of consensus to exist in a dictionary or semiotic treatise. I think that clinging to your own meaning of absolute free speech when faced with not an arbitrary definition, but one which was reached through a social and cultural consensus, is naive or willfully contrarian.
> Free speech only applies in the relationship between citizens and the state.
That is a pretty silly definition.
Imagine if a corporate owned mafia was going around murdering everyone who supports increasing taxes.
Surely, you would recognize that this has a chilling effect on speech, and could be said to control people's free speech rights, even though it is not the government doing it.
> an idea that puts forward genocide as acceptable form of action should never be allowed under "free speech"
See I have a problem with the word "never". How about "rarely" or at least "once". A terrible idea should be given an audience once. Let it it be quickly refuted, then go back to better conversations. If someone brings it up again, point them back to the earlier discussion. That way it is established why it is a bad idea.
In practice, almost never. Internet arguments seldom result in both sides agreeing on a single outcome. Nobody is convincing anyone else of anything on the internet (most of the time).
Sometimes. Threads are archived. Questions closed but not deleted. New questions/comments disallowed. It meets a middle ground between absolute free speech and absolute moderation.
Those developed countries have people taking their banned speech underground. It is usually also very illegal to take their strongest arguments and argue against them. All you have left is hope that they will never gain stronger support.
My words were "a wide range of topics" not "all the topics".
Personally I can think of a meaningful debate that can be had from talking about "genocide" but I'm pretty sure that people that would hold this opinion in truth are a little beyond what would be considered a "good faith" discussion.
A free speech platform should allow a wide range of topics, but it's not expected to stand for all manner of trolling and bad faith argumentation. I think that conflating the two is tripping a lot of people up in the debate about the topic.