So uh, who's going to be the arbiter of what exactly constitutes intolerant or harmful speech? You? Me? Facebook? The government? Twitter?
Whoever gets the power to define what's acceptable and not acceptable speech is given too much power. You might trust that arbiter now, tomorrow, but do you honestly believe their incentives will always remain pure?
The problem I see with that line of argument is that it basically means you're arguing we can't do anything about it and just have to accept whatever actions people take regardless of the impacts of those actions.
It reads to me like "it's hard, so let us just do nothing".
Incitement to violent insurrection seems like a pretty clear example of "too far." So is peddling provable lies to extremists which are easily linked to terrorist acts.
Ultimately you either think domestic terrorism is fine or you don't. I don't see a case for the media wilfully and knowingly misleading people and inciting violence.
If this was true, then prosecute for incitement to violent insurrection which is already a crime. We already have the means to police unlawful speech, censorship need not be one of them.
I guess we'll see. They couldn't get it done after he obstructed a federal investigation. They couldn't get it done after he extorted a bribe from Ukraine. Now he's incited an insurrection, so who knows if that's enough.
Sure, but you seem to be implying that government has no place in how we self-police and restrain ourselves. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Government is not an external entity which subjugates us, it is the tool by which we settle our grievances with each other without beating each other to death with rocks. To facilitate that, we give government the exclusive right to police us. And I would argue part of that duty extends to ensuring that the populace is informed and aware of the facts of the situation.
In our rush to condemn the reprehensible aspects of government we have lost sight of the goal, which is to promote civil society and respect for our fellow man.
I mean, Facebook just suspended Trump, so it seems like we are doing something, we’re just arguing about where the lines should be. I don’t think it’s wrong to note that revolutionary ideas both good and bad come from the fringes and that some consequential positive influences might be deplatformed in the future. This is one of the few times in history the “good guys” have had the power to control the narrative. We should acknowledge that.
Facebook, the government, twitter, they all already arbitrate what speech is/isn’t protected. In the case of twitter/facebook, it’s the digital public square and the government is in the physical public square, for now.
One problem with this is that people do not have as much potential recourse through Facebook and Twitter as they might through the courts.
The penalties are different too. You might be facing a ban from Fb/twitter instead of prison time/fines from the courts.
Having skepticism in the arbiters of what is/isn’t protected speech is critical. We should be skeptical of them and challenge them if we think they are wrong. Organizations, like the ACLU, exist for this reason, to protect our rights.
Thank you, this is the cleanest deconstruction of this argument I've ever seen.
I think the fundamental misconception is that speech "cannot infringe other's freedoms" like physical actions can, so no tradeoffs of individual's freedoms have to be collectively decided for speech.
The idea of words propagating beliefs, drowning out others and inciting actions is just subtle enough to weasel out of whenever convenient in this world view.
I think part of the problem as well is that "free speech" has been elevated from "desirable" to "the greatest good". It is good. It is not the greatest good. It does not surprise me to see people involved in Internet communications/social networking trumpeting free speech as the greatest good since these communication channels depend on us not restricting free speech to a more reasonable place in our society.
These aren't difficult questions, nor are they new questions that our country hasn't answered before.
The government is the ultimate arbiter of speech in the US, and their actions are limited by the 1st amendment as interpreted and implemented by our judiciary and legislatures respectively.
When groups gather on private property, we respect the property rights of those who own it.
As was said, this is just a slippery slope argument. Which is especially odd considering the platforms already have all the power they need. There is no more power to give.
Ability to censor top level politicians, deciding what constitutes acceptable and what needs to be censored is not the kind of power they used to have.
This isn't true. Private entities have never been required to distribute messages from US officials or politicians. I believe the only exceptions are certain emergency broadcasts.
It's worth pointing out that Trump's videos yesterday -- praising the people who had just attacked and sacked the Capitol Building during a joint session of congress and conspicuously refusing to demand they leave -- were probably legally an incitement to violence regardless. Certainly normal prosecutors could get convictions on that sort of thing[1] in normal courts. The only reason it seems gray is because the speaker is the President.
[1] Remember that in context they were at the capitol because Trump himself, in person, had directed they march there just an hour before. I mean, really, that's pretty open-and-shut as far as mens rea.
> who's going to be the arbiter of what exactly constitutes intolerant or harmful speech?
Someone needs to do it, though. You don't get free license to incite violence anywhere, and no one thinks that's a good idea. You can't do it here on HN. You can't do it on Reddit. Why should you be able to do it on Facebook?
Now, sure, there's a question as to whether Trump's posts yesterday went quite as far as you think they'd need to be considered "inciting violence". But that's a judgement call. You don't want Facebook carrying a call to attack congress, you just think that's not what Trump did.
But if there is a call for a mob to sack the seat of government and attack a joint session of congress, I think we all agree that Facebook should be allowed to censor the fuck out of that.
That's why actions must be evaluated on a case by case basis. This time, I support Facebook, but for other actions I make no judgement until I see the facts of the case. That is always the challenge of free, democratic societies. Every actor, public and private, must always be scrutinized. In the 90's, Bill Gates was an unscrupulous monopolist. In 2020, he's at the head of several groundbreaking global health initiatives that he's personally funding. I can support him in one thing while criticizing him for another.
Trump has incited terrorism, he has incited insurrection. The importance of his position in the government makes this situation even more extreme. This is not a routine situation, and if you want to argue there's going to be a slippery slope, then you'll need actual pattern of behavior, not just this extreme situation. Because if not now, then when? When are private parties allowed to say that they're not going to support Trump's treasonous behavior?
Whoever gets the power to define what's acceptable and not acceptable speech is given too much power. You might trust that arbiter now, tomorrow, but do you honestly believe their incentives will always remain pure?