Free speech to be blocked under guise of stopping hate speech.

[paralleluniverse]

Freedom of Speech only pertains to the Government, not private entities. They have the right to "limit speech" on their sites, just as you have the right to not let me paint swastikas on the side of your house.

This IS the government cracking down on free speech and forcing tech companies to enforce their censorship regime.

[Deleted]

Kinda funny since I can remember forum moderation or irc chat moderation being a thing since I got hands on my very first dial up internet connection.

U can be as pedantic as u like about where exactly the internet came from but u know full well what im talking about

[Pangean]

And how is that a bad thing? If I keep seeing repeating pattern with same party involved over and over then maybe It's wise to point out the source of the issue? Do I deserve to called racism/xenophobic because the resulting conclusion is not politcally correct enough?

You can decide it's bad or not. Again an opinion. Not the Truth. The difficulty that you are having is because you have formed an opinion you believe it must be the truth and as such must be accepted as you believe by others. Or why else would you state it's the truth?

Do you deserve to be called a racist or a xenophobe? I don't know much of what you write and as such can't form an opinion. Get it yet?

[Deleted]

This IS the government cracking down on free speech and forcing tech companies to enforce their censorship regime.

Indeed, this is government pressure on private companies, free speech only when it's government and all that

http://www.cnbc.com/2015/09/27/angel...ant-posts.html

Angela Merkel caught on hot mic griping to Facebook CEO over anti-immigrant posts

German Chancellor Angela Merkel was overheard confronting Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg over incendiary posts on the social network, Bloomberg reported on Sunday, amid complaints from her government about anti-immigrant posts in the midst of Europe's refugee crisis.

On the sidelines of a United Nations luncheon on Saturday, Merkel was caught on a hot mic pressing Zuckerberg about social media posts about the wave of Syrian refugees entering Germany, the publication reported.

The Facebook CEO was overheard responding that "we need to do some work" on curtailing anti-immigrant posts about the refugee crisis. "Are you working on this?" Merkel asked in English, to which Zuckerberg replied in the affirmative before the transmission was disrupted.

[Deleted]

You can decide it's bad or not. Again an opinion. Not the Truth. The difficulty that you are having is because you have formed an opinion you believe it must be the truth and as such must be accepted as you believe by others. Or why else would you state it's the truth?

Do you deserve to be called a racist or a xenophobe? I don't know much of what you write and as such can't form an opinion. Get it yet?

So how would you define the truth then?

[Pangean]

U can be as pedantic as u like about where exactly the internet came from but u know full well what im talking about

Cuz how dare he point out accurate information. You going to claim Usenet was completely uncensored as well and didn't have moderated newsgroups?

[Felya]

Kinda funny since I can remember forum moderation or irc chat moderation being a thing since I got hands on my very first dial up internet connection.

Your memory is either being selective or you were on an ISP server for IRC. All the big name ISPs limited what you saw on IRC, unless you used an independent server. Then, you might see rooms moderated, but those rooms would serve everything from warez to illegal activity with minors. If you grabbed the full channel list, scrolling through them was a pretty disgusting endeavor. Saying IRC was moderated, is a gross misrepresentation of what actually is being moderated.

But, predating that, BBS were pretty much the wild Wild West if Internet communication. If you had the right BBS server, you had access to everything. Web browsers actually killed BBS due to indexing. This also allowed both, increased overview of content and increased access for companies to grow. If this did not happen, neither would have smart phones or any proliferation of Internet technology.

The ability to appeal to a mass audience and policy or TOS that cements that perception is the reason for the success of the Internet. If we were still in the BBS or IRC times, odds of us chatting right now would be slim. Because Internet gaming would still be stuck on pen and paper, to never have WOW. On top of that, the content would be so volatile, while at the same time the audience so small, everything from YouTube to Wikipedia to Amazon would not exist.

[Deleted]

Your first statement is that you do not think you are owed a platform.

I didnt say that... i suggest u read my post again.

I was responding to a guy who accused everyone as thinking they are owed a platform. I disagree that anyone is saying theyre 'owed' a platform.

Your second statement is that you actually think you should be allowed to say whatever you want, wherever you want. That stands in direct contradiction to the first statement.

How does that contradict my first statement?

IT DOESNT

Being able to say what u like doesnt have anything to do with being 'owed a platform'

U sir are trying to connect apples and oranges.

My points are completely CONSISTENT statements. And u are just saying their contradictory out of total randomness.

[theredviola]

I think many people frequently confuse "freedom of speech" with "freedom from consequences."

[provaporous]

Let's stay away from discussing moderation, it's on the forbidden topics list for a reason. Further discussion of moderation will not be tolerated.


If you have a problem with moderation, take it up with a blue (global) moderator.

"forbidden topics" 1984 called it wants it's themes list back.
What is the reason members of a forum cannot discuss the moderation of the forum? Even if we make a new thread?

[Deleted]

Sure they do. Shit they are arguing for it just a few posts above. If they don't want their speech policed then they should find a platform that doesn't do that. Demanding that a company not police whats on their site is..guess what. a demand for a platform.

No it isnt.

They are asking for (or demanding) that a platform that they already use DOESNT POLICE THEIR SPEECH.

Nobody is saying they are 'owed a platform'. Thats you putting words in their mouths.

And to claim their are no platforms for their speech is ignorance pure and simple.

Nobody said this either.

Ur great at putting words into peoples mouths.

No one is censoring the Internet sweetums at Facebook. They are stating their are standards for speech that must be met on their platform. If that's not acceptable go elsewhere. Cuz you know on the Internet anyone can start a site and say whatever the fuck they want. You know cuz the Internet is not censored.

That is called censorship.

Any platform which filters speech is censorship.

For someone who claims to have helped birth the Internet, you don't understand it. It was never that all information was free and uncensored and forced to be allowed on every site. It was that all that information in any form could be on the Internet. It was never forcing your view of what a site should contain and in what form. It was that there was always a platform for you if you desired, not that all platforms were forced to be made available to you.

Errrm yes it was, i suggest u do some research.

The freedom of ideas and information was the original motivation and catalyst of why the internet took off in the first place. its since been hijacked by big business and authorities who have spent the past couple of decades policing it into what it is today.

And nobody is forcing any views here dude... again ur putting words into peoples mouths.... you are good at that! lol

I stand by my position that censorship on the internet is very bad. And specifically censoring opinions u dont like is very dangerous indeed. Anyone who advocates censorship is contributing to destroying the free and open space of 'the people'.

[Kujako]

"forbidden topics" 1984 called it wants it's themes list back.
What is the reason members of a forum cannot discuss the moderation of the forum? Even if we make a new thread?

Because this is private property and there are rules you agreed to follow.

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That is called censorship.

Any platform which filters speech is censorship.

Then all platforms have censorship and the term is now meaningless due to overuse. Penguin doesn't publish my book? Censorship! NY Times doesn't publish my letter? Censorship! You paint over the graffiti I put on your house? Censorship!

[Narwal]

But you created a subjective example (ISIS), then proceeded to complain about the utilization of subjectivity in deeming what hate speech is.

The title says that free speech is being blocked, but that's not really the case.

Bingo - What is deemed hate speech is subjective. So this isn't an argument of facts (on either side), this is a subject of opinion. The people highly supportive of this assume their speech is not hate speech given the culture we're seeing today, especially on campuses and in the protests. Those who are opposed to it, are scared of what's going on in these campuses and protests with regard to speech being silenced, not celebrated. If these are the people picking the standards of what is or is not hate speech, we are in for some trouble. The left tends to forget that their policies eventually cannibalize themselves. In order for left policies to work, there has to be a victim. Eventually, you are no longer viewed as the victim, but the abuser in the absence of more convenient targets.

[Endus]

No it isnt.

They are asking for (or demanding) that a platform that they already use DOESNT POLICE THEIR SPEECH.

Nobody is saying they are 'owed a platform'. Thats you putting words in their mouths.

When you expect the platform owners, who aren't you, will be denied their freedom of speech, that's exactly what you're doing; claiming that you are "owed" their platform.

You aren't. They're free to not allow any speech on their platform they dislike. That's their free speech. Don't like it? Get your own platform. You aren't owed any access to a platform, and none of those platforms exist without rules regarding what kinds of speech they'll allow. Because your speech on that platform isn't just your speech. It's also partially their speech. By denying you that platform, they're just removing their component. You're still free to keep saying whatever the message was. Just not on that platform.

[Felya]

Cuz how dare he point out accurate information. You going to claim Usenet was completely uncensored as well and didn't have moderated newsgroups?

There is a bit of misrepresentation happening there. It was not moderated as far as what you served, but even the worst kind of channels had moderation. You could get banned on everything from warez to porn to hook up channels. But, all of those channels existed. This is with channels ran by individuals, without share holders or financial reports. It only makes sense that with increased user base, the TOS would increase along with it. What is popular on the Internet, is no longer the same, due to how rapidly it grew. Just an example of how strange those times were, Sunny of WWF fame was the top downloaded images on aol. Now, you can download a preview of her porn shoot on porn hub.

Yes, Internet had a lot of content that seemed unmoderated based on the content they served, but were still moderated within those channels. You could go into a warez room, but as soon as you start flooding the room with chat, instead of grab commands, you were banned.

Further more, all of those still exist. You can still go to IRC and get all the 'unmoderated' content. 4chan is still around and daily motion is a far more loose platform than YouTube. The problem is that people want those sites to be on the same level as more popular sites and see the differance in user base as censorship. It's a kin to googling a place to buy smokes in your area, with Walmart being the only hit. Then complaining that Walmart is censoring your ability to buy smokes, despite the bodega that has no internet presence, but is located right next to Walmart. What you seek is out there, you just cannot Google for it as easy as more predominantly bigger or more commercial sites.

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"forbidden topics" 1984 called it wants it's themes list back.
What is the reason members of a forum cannot discuss the moderation of the forum? Even if we make a new thread?

Because it's pointless and detrimental to the content of the site. Without the rule, I'd bet most of the threads here would be bitching about moderation, until no one would be around.

Edit: 1984 is a horrible example. You are litteraly comparing burning information to the Internet, where information has no limit. To think that 1984 was about the ease of going to one site, instead of another, misses the whole point of the book.

[Deleted]

Then all platforms have censorship and the term is now meaningless due to overuse. Penguin doesn't publish my book? Censorship! NY Times doesn't publish my letter? Censorship! You paint over the graffiti I put on your house? Censorship!

Except none of those examples are SPEECH.

We are discussing places where people talk to each other. Communication on a two way platform.

[cFortyfive]

U can be as pedantic as u like about where exactly the internet came from but u know full well what im talking about

No I don't. Platforms have always been promoting their own rules. Obviously social media is vastly larger than anything that came before but I still can easily read the most hateful shit if I want to elsewhere.

Saying IRC was moderated, is a gross misrepresentation of what actually is being moderated.

I suppose I should have been more clear and stated chat channel moderation.

[Endus]

Except none of those examples are SPEECH.

They're all speech, in the sense of free speech.

We are discussing places where people talk to each other. Communication on a two way platform.

Yeah, no. We're not "talking", here. We're posting digital data to a publicly-accessible bulletin board. One which exists for commercial purposes, and which has rules it expects community members to abide by.

[Pangean]

I didnt say that... i suggest u read my post again.

I was responding to a guy who accused everyone as thinking they are owed a platform. I disagree that anyone is saying theyre 'owed' a platform.




How does that contradict my first statement?

IT DOESNT

Being able to say what u like doesnt have anything to do with being 'owed a platform'

U sir are trying to connect apples and oranges.

My points are completely CONSISTENT statements. And u are just saying their contradictory out of total randomness.

You stated: "Nobody thinks theyre "owed a platform", they dont want their speech policed by ANYONE. And that is where i also stand."

One, indeed folks are demanding to say what they want on sites, regardless of the sites rules. That's demanding a platform for speech. Shit some are demanding the government force it upon the company. The posts are still in this very thread. Do you actually deny this?

Second demanding that folks not police their words when cites have specific rules about certain types of speech is once again demanding a platform for their speech, in opposition to the platform owners wishes.

You are consistent in the sense that consistent now means inconsistent.

[purebalance]

its a simple concept that goes over the head of too many.

Really? Pretty sure the OP says that Facebook was being sued for not responding to hate speech... if they had the right to ignore free speech they could have fully ignored hate speech and somehow the government couldn't force them to protect people from hate speech. So, no, the concept seems to have gone over the government's head then as well.... or maybe you're making stuff up.

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When you expect the platform owners, who aren't you, will be denied their freedom of speech, that's exactly what you're doing; claiming that you are "owed" their platform.

You aren't. They're free to not allow any speech on their platform they dislike. That's their free speech. Don't like it? Get your own platform. You aren't owed any access to a platform, and none of those platforms exist without rules regarding what kinds of speech they'll allow. Because your speech on that platform isn't just your speech. It's also partially their speech. By denying you that platform, they're just removing their component. You're still free to keep saying whatever the message was. Just not on that platform.

Then Merkel is trying to deny Facebook it's freedom by complaining to silence people when Facebook deemed it wasn't something to do. The left is the one infringing on Facebook etc's free speech as you claim by demanding people be silenced or that no hate speech be allowed or what THEY deem to be hate speech. So which is it? Facebook can do what it wants and Merkel and others need to stfu or Facebook needs to silence people equally?