Serious response – how would anyone who doesn't use Twitter know who's using "hate speech" unless it were posted in other places?
First of all, I reject your attempt to psychically determine the motives of the previous Twitter staff.
Also, you are misstating my meaning when I say public. I meant open to the public to use, which Twitter was.
My central theme is the difference between what you believe and what I believe. If I were in a position to make decisions for a public speaking forum, I would never censor it based on opinions I disagree with or don't believe, except for invocations to imminent violence.
Once one allows the censoring of hate speech, it follows as the night the day that people will label what other people say as hate speech merely because they disagree with it.
Some of us - not you - believe that we don't have to block the community from hearing ideas we don't agree with. We believe in a free marketplace of ideas and in allowing the community to sort out what is true and good. The best solution to bad ideas is better ideas, not censorship.
Brandon9000 wrote:First of all, I reject your attempt to psychically determine the motives of the previous Twitter staff.
I don't need to psychically determine anything. Public companies have a certain responsibility to their stakeholders. If Twitter instituted a certain policy, that policy would fall under that responsibility. It is a completely fair assumption of say that Twitter pursued a policy that was beneficial to their business model. They might have been wrong, but the assumption is valid.
Brandon9000 wrote:
Also, you are misstating my meaning when I say public. I meant open to the public to use, which Twitter was.
Not misstating so much as challenging. Cracker Barrel is open to public use, but you've already said that that doesn't mean that people can just start preaching in the dinning area.
Brandon9000 wrote:
My central theme is the difference between what you believe and what I believe. If I were in a position to make decisions for a public speaking forum, I would never censor it based on opinions I disagree with or don't believe, except for invocations to imminent violence.
I'm sure you believe that, but that is because you have never had that responsibility. If you were in charge of the lobby area of your local HOA run pool and someone started coming every day at spouting anti-semitic rants at the families trying to come in for a swim, my guess is you would stop it because you are a decent guy and would want to protect the right of the families to use this resource without having their children exposed to such conduct. If you didn't, my guess is that the HOA would thank you for your service and find someone who would do a better just looking out for the community.
Brandon9000 wrote:
Once one allows the censoring of hate speech, it follows as the night the day that people will label what other people say as hate speech merely because they disagree with it.
That happens all the time today. Remember a certain quarterback who was blackballed from the NFL. People ban others they disagree with all the time. Your belief that private companies and spaces are subject to the first amendment which clearly states that it restricts what government can do is clearly wrong and philosophically diametrically opposed to the privacy and association rights that are also enshrined in the Constitution.
Brandon9000 wrote:
Some of us - not you - believe that we don't have to block the community from hearing ideas we don't agree with. We believe in a free marketplace of ideas and in allowing the community to sort out what is true and good. The best solution to bad ideas is better ideas, not censorship.
But that is not the question here. The question is whether you can force a private company to allow and pay for the promotion of those ideas to their detriment. If you want to create a web page and put your beliefs on the Internet, it is incredibly cheap, the tools are free, Internet hosting is very inexpensive. Your position is that if Twitter does not allow and pay to host hate speech that is detrimental to its business model, that it is against the principle of "free speech". That has never been part of the fabric of the United States. Employers can fire employees at will, ban speech on private property, etc. This does not prevent free speech in public spaces and the US protections against public speech are pretty much second to none, but the idea that private companies must support your speech is clearly wrong, both legally and philosophically.
First of all, I reject their classification of what is hate speech. Secondly, you haven't made any case at all that a forum which allowed every opinion to be expressed would make less money.
This is an invalid point. I've stated very clearly that my restriction in this case would be on being loud, not on the content of the speech.
engineer wrote:
Brandon9000 wrote:
My central theme is the difference between what you believe and what I believe. If I were in a position to make decisions for a public speaking forum, I would never censor it based on opinions I disagree with or don't believe, except for invocations to imminent violence.
I'm sure you believe that, but that is because you have never had that responsibility. If you were in charge of the lobby area of your local HOA run pool and someone started coming every day at spouting anti-semitic rants at the families trying to come in for a swim, my guess is you would stop it because you are a decent guy and would want to protect the right of the families to use this resource without having their children exposed to such conduct. If you didn't, my guess is that the HOA would thank you for your service and find someone who would do a better just looking out for the community.
This is the same logic mistake you keep making. Yes, I would stop it, but only because it's walking up to someone and insulting him in person to his face, not because the speech is repugnant. I would not stop anyone from expressing any opinion at a reasonable volume level other than a personal attack on someone. And, since it's obviously your next question, I would not restrict personal attacks against individuals online, as long as they didn't contain violent threats, because it's not the same to me as walking up to someone and accosting him in person.
I've said over and over here that I do not "believe that private companies and spaces are subject to the first amendment." How many times do I have to say it before you process it? If you misstate my opinion, then any resulting argument will be invalid. My argument has been continuously that if the old Twitter believed in freedom of speech as a philosophy, they would allow freedom of speech and that I think they should.
7. What not to say: We won't publish letters that are potentially libelous, that contain profanity or racist remarks, that insult or stereotype entire groups of people, that quote heavily from other sources or religious texts, that are theological in nature, or that contain personal attacks or name-calling. We don't knowingly print letters that have been written by others, that are part of lobbying or letter-writing campaigns, or that have been sent to other publications.
engineer wrote:
Brandon9000 wrote:
Some of us - not you - believe that we don't have to block the community from hearing ideas we don't agree with. We believe in a free marketplace of ideas and in allowing the community to sort out what is true and good. The best solution to bad ideas is better ideas, not censorship.
But that is not the question here. The question is whether you can force a private company to allow and pay for the promotion of those ideas to their detriment. If you want to create a web page and put your beliefs on the Internet, it is incredibly cheap, the tools are free, Internet hosting is very inexpensive. Your position is that if Twitter does not allow and pay to host hate speech that is detrimental to its business model, that it is against the principle of "free speech". That has never been part of the fabric of the United States. Employers can fire employees at will, ban speech on private property, etc. This does not prevent free speech in public spaces and the US protections against public speech are pretty much second to none, but the idea that private companies must support your speech is clearly wrong, both legally and philosophically.
Again, this is a misstatement of a position that I've stated over and over. I do not believe that private companies are subject to the first amendment. I believe that favoring freedom of speech would be a better philosophy for them. I believe it is better not to block the community from hearing opinions, but rather to allow people to counter bad opinions with good opinions and let the community sort it out.
Elon Musk bought Twitter for $44 billion, but almost a third of it was in bank loans. He used a leveraged buyout strategy, which means Twitter, not Musk, is on the hook to pay back the loans.
The central point is that in an online forum for conversation, I would not censor repugnant speech. I believe the community should be able to hear all opinions and reach their own conclusions. I favor good ideas as the solution to bad ideas, rather than censorship.
I would allow all speech except invocations to imminent violence, child pornography, and an extremely restricted set of situations like that.
The reason why I would take that policy is because I do not believe in preventing the community from seeing opinions which I consider bad. I believe in allowing a free marketplace of ideas and allowing the community to sort it out. I call this philosophy free speech, despite the fact that it is not without a very small number of restrictions.
You have countered this by citing situations of in-person speech, most of them involving someone walking up to another person and speaking directly to him. The fact that you can construct scenarios in which I'd agree to a restriction on in-person speech doesn't alter the fact that I'd pursue the policy I've stated for an online conversation platform.
The central point is that in an online forum for conversation, I would not censor repugnant speech. I believe the community should be able to hear all opinions and reach their own conclusions. I favor good ideas as the solution to bad ideas, rather than censorship.
I do not believe private organizations should be required to pursue this policy, but I believe that my way is better than censorship, and I'd respect them more if they shared this philosophy.
Also, I'm not remotely convinced that the motives of these companies in censoring speech is what you claim it is - a desire to maximize income. I suspect that a large part of their motives is connected with aiding their own political agendas.
Furthermore, you haven't remotely demonstrated that a forum run as I've described would make less money.
4chan is the Internet's most trafficked imageboard, according to the Los Angeles Times.[10] 4chan's Alexa rank is 853 as of March 2022[11] though it has been as high as 56.[12] It is provided to its users free of charge and consumes a large amount of bandwidth; as a result, its financing has often been problematic. Poole has acknowledged that donations alone could not keep the site online, and turned to advertising to help make ends meet.[13] However, the explicit content hosted on 4chan has deterred businesses who do not want to be associated with the site's content.[14] In January 2009, Poole signed a new deal with an advertising company; in February 2009, he was $20,000 in debt, and the site was continuing to lose money.[15]
Brandon9000 wrote:The central point is that in an online forum for conversation, I would not censor repugnant speech. I believe the community should be able to hear all opinions and reach their own conclusions. I favor good ideas as the solution to bad ideas, rather than censorship.
Ok, explain a better idea to handle a swastika inside a Star of David.
