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The Consequences of Indecency (techcrunch.com)
Ron Wyden, a senior U.S. Senator from Oregon, argues there should be consequences for internet companies that refuse to remove hate speech from their platforms. An anonymous reader shares an excerpt from a report Wyden wrote via TechCrunch: I wrote the law that allows sites to be unfettered free speech marketplaces. I wrote that same law, Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, to provide vital protections to sites that didn't want to host the most unsavory forms of expression. The goal was to protect the unique ability of the internet to be the proverbial marketplace of ideas while ensuring that mainstream sites could reflect the ethics of society as a whole. In general, this has been a success -- with one glaring exception. I never expected that internet CEOs would fail to understand one simple principle: that an individual endorsing (or denying) the extermination of millions of people, or attacking the victims of horrific crimes or the parents of murdered children, is far more indecent than an individual posting pornography.
Social media cannot exist without the legal protections of Section 230. That protection is not constitutional, it's statutory. Failure by the companies to properly understand the premise of the law is the beginning of the end of the protections it provides. I say this because their failures are making it increasingly difficult for me to protect Section 230 in Congress. Members across the spectrum, including far-right House and Senate leaders, are agitating for government regulation of internet platforms. Even if government doesn't take the dangerous step of regulating speech, just eliminating the 230 protections is enough to have a dramatic, chilling effect on expression across the internet. Were Twitter to lose the protections I wrote into law, within 24 hours its potential liabilities would be many multiples of its assets and its stock would be worthless. The same for Facebook and any other social media site. Boards of directors should have taken action long before now against CEOs who refuse to recognize this threat to their business. In an interview with Recode, Wyden said that platforms should be punished for hosting content that goes against "common decency." "I think what the Alex Jones case shows, we're gonna really be looking at what the consequences are for just leaving common decency in the dust," Wyden told Recode's Kara Swisher. "...What I'm gonna be trying to do in my legislation is to really lay out what the consequences are when somebody who is a bad actor, somebody who really doesn't meet the decency principles that reflect our values, if that bad actor blows by the bounds of common decency, I think you gotta have a way to make sure that stuff is taken down."
Social media cannot exist without the legal protections of Section 230. That protection is not constitutional, it's statutory. Failure by the companies to properly understand the premise of the law is the beginning of the end of the protections it provides. I say this because their failures are making it increasingly difficult for me to protect Section 230 in Congress. Members across the spectrum, including far-right House and Senate leaders, are agitating for government regulation of internet platforms. Even if government doesn't take the dangerous step of regulating speech, just eliminating the 230 protections is enough to have a dramatic, chilling effect on expression across the internet. Were Twitter to lose the protections I wrote into law, within 24 hours its potential liabilities would be many multiples of its assets and its stock would be worthless. The same for Facebook and any other social media site. Boards of directors should have taken action long before now against CEOs who refuse to recognize this threat to their business. In an interview with Recode, Wyden said that platforms should be punished for hosting content that goes against "common decency." "I think what the Alex Jones case shows, we're gonna really be looking at what the consequences are for just leaving common decency in the dust," Wyden told Recode's Kara Swisher. "...What I'm gonna be trying to do in my legislation is to really lay out what the consequences are when somebody who is a bad actor, somebody who really doesn't meet the decency principles that reflect our values, if that bad actor blows by the bounds of common decency, I think you gotta have a way to make sure that stuff is taken down."
go on, define it
Decency.... hate speech .... blah blah blah blah
Everything that Senator Wyden says is the same exact justification that China, North Korea and every other dictatorship uses for suppressing free speech and free expression.
...and decides that things like "homosexuality", "pre-marital sex" and "mixed marriages" are "against the common decency" - then it's perfectly ok for any matching content to be removed from the internet, right? RIGHT?
Because THAT'S what this is saying...
...when what is considered indecent is decided by those in power?
--- Reality doesn't care about your opinions, it happens anyway and if you are in the way you'll get squished.
Let's start with the bad actor Ron Wyden, somebody who really doesn't meet the decency principles that reflect our values. That bad actor blows by the bounds of common decency. Make sure that stuff is taken down.
Your Version of "decency" is what is to be enforced right?
It used to be indecent to do a lot of things, like race mixing, anything more than holding hands in public, women showing too much skin... did you see her ankles? What a fucking slut!!!
Yea yea we get it... we really do get! Free Speech for me, but not for thee!
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it" - from The Friends of Voltaire
This kind of commitment to free speech is a pillar of classical liberalism. Sen. Wyden is interested in the opposite: infringing civil rights.
Hate speech does poorly in a free marketplace of ideas, and brings discredit upon the speaker. There is no need to infringe freedom of speech, one of the most fundamental civil rights.
That that is is that that that that is not is not.
If Trolling people at funerals in real life is perfectly legal and without consequences then why the hell should the internet be any different?
Free speech should be left alone and private companies can set whatever community guidelines they want regarding free speech and they should be able to enforce them when someone breaks them. Anyone not liking getting booted for breaking community guidelines can just go rent some web space or dedicated server and start their own stream and say anything they want, oh oh yah there's that thing called the audience. With out YT/Twitter/etc no one would find the Alex Jones types.
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
"Free speech only important if it's offensive".
The thing is, the online services have already taken that first step by agreeing together to remove Alex Jones from all the major social media sites.
The fact that Alex Jones is a reprehensible conspiracy-mongering nutburger is beside the point. Of course he is. Anyone with two neurons capable of achieving a synapse can tell that.
But he's far less of an evil than Holocaust deniers and actual Nazis. If they can remove the lesser evil, whey are they hesitating to remove the greater evil?
They've already passed the "That's already been decided; now we're just haggling about the price" point with the Alex Jones thing.
The only way to win this game is to refuse to start playing it in the first place, but that horse left the barn a few weeks ago.
Social media cannot exist without the legal protections of Section 230. That protection is not constitutional, it's statutory.
The first amendment states the following:
The first amendment is intended to restrain congress from acting against free speech. If revising or removing the Section 230 protections has a chilling effect on free expression, then Congress has abridged free speech, and the act of modifying Section 230 was then unconstitutional. It does not matter that Section 230 did not exist at the time the constitution was made ---- Today we enjoy certain free speech rights, And a law protects platforms who enable us to exercise that free speech right. ANY attempt to curtail that by passing any kind of law or law that says an existing law shall change --- is an abridgement of Free Speech; Once congress passes a law protecting free speech (Such as Section 230) --- which is their authority to do in order to enforce the constitution, The first amendment ensures congress does not have the right to abridge the rights of expression by cancelling that protection.
Who gets to set that "ethics of society" for political speech? One side of US politics for political comments?
Who gets to flag and enforce that "ethics of society" on US domestic politics? Followers of one side of US politics?
The USA saw what "chilling effect on expression" was like under the tyranny of a UK monarchy.
Thats why the USA protects the freedom of speech and freedom after speech.
Why the USA has freedom of the press.
The right to peaceably assemble.
To petition for a governmental redress of grievances.
Self-evident under God. Not the changing partisan politics to "reflect the ethics of society".
US freedoms are protected from governments, not for governments to set limits on.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
People all over the USA keep broadcasting and with technology people don't need the party politics views of big brand mainstream media.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
If it's not directly inciting violence then no. This is exactly the sort of oppression the far right is hoping and praying for. They'll use this crap to organize themselves. Nothing makes a group band together like an opponent. This is a terrible idea and Wyden should know that. He's better than this.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
When you put certain powers in people's hands, they may do good at first, but within a generation it will change. What you think is hate speech today may very well include things you don't agree with in a decade or two.
By then, you won't have any ability to stop those in power because you gave away your rights to fight some injustice in the past.
Bottom line: don't give away your right to free speech, or free assembly, or religion, or any other guaranteed by the Bill of Rights. Because one day there may be no one else to protect them, and when they are gone they are gone for good. And you will regret it. This was a bold experiment in human history. Don't let it end because of fear.
Or some dumbass politician from Oregon.
WTF is "hate speech"? Who defines it?
How is calling someone a nagger hate speech?
Are we really that far removed from common sense?
*facepalm*
No doubt, Wyden imagines that it will be someone like him and not someone like President Trump that gets to decide what constitutes "common decency" and hence what gets banned in practice. But to imagine President Trump making such decisions, requires thought. And members of the Bike Lock Party don't think, they only emote.
And what do they emote about: Who to hit over the head with Bike Locks.
I hope this was offensive enough for you.
"We need to kill all those old white guys and make sure that someone who represents the actual people runs Washington."
Is that hate speech? That's basically the left's rhetoric everywhere for the last 80 years.
Simply look at the problems global platforms are experiencing with foreign governments currently.
Twitter pressured to remove content because it offends the thin-skinned leader of another country (China, Turkey). I mean really, Winnie the Pooh is offensive? Imagine Trump having the power to ban all pictures and references to Cheetos from the internet because its "offensive" to his supporters!
The bigger problem though is vocal minorities.
Imagine the US Government forcing YouTube to remove Mark Meechan's (Nazi dog guy's) videos because a small group of people with no sense of humor complained.
Imagine Facebook removing a Harry Potter fan page because a group of angry Bible Belt moms complained it was "of the devil" and offensive.
Imagine the knee-jerk reaction to the next mass shooting being to remove whatever imagined influence (Ozzy Osbourne, Iron maiden, D&D, Magic the Gathering, Marilyn Manson, Call of Duty, etc) from the internet "to prevent it happening again".
This isn't a slippery slope. Its a cliff. And we're standing at the edge with one foot over the drop while politicians stand behind us screaming that somehow that step will be good for us.
Hate speech is speech the Left hates.
There is this constant attempt by the Left to label any position it doesn't like as far right or Nazi. Thus, once labeled, it can be removed. Coincidentally, this is the same philosophy used by the far left regimes of the 20th century. They failed in part because they punished anyone who told the truth and thus could not obtain accurate information about their situation. That's the problem we developed free speech to deal with. It's very worrisome the Left apparently learned nothing from this.
Hagbard Celine's Law: accurate information is only possible in a non-punishing situation.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
"Indecency" is the new "corrupting the youth."
Or even "royalism" or being a kulak.
They just want to remove off-Narrative content.
They will use any excuse.
Worrying about "indecency" is the new "think of the children!"
Alternative Right.
facebook, twitter and youtube kicked alex jones off their platforms, they are not violating alex jones civil rights of free speech, they just dont have to provide a patform for alex jones or anyone else for that matter,
personally i think alex jones is a carpetbagging tinfoil asshat,
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
Yes, its almost as if they dont already have plenty of existing laws that can be applied for anything that is ACTUALLY ILLEGAL.
What this is pushing for is government oversight on the morality of discussions, and anyone who doesn't understand that deserves to suffer the consequences.
Someone online engaging in actual slander, actual threats, actual hate speech (already getting blurry there) already has LAWS THAT CAN BE APPLIED.
'On the internet' is not some kind of magic legal umbrella.
The larger concern here is farcebook et.al. acting like they have common-carrier like protections and yet ALSO engaging in selective removal of content.
They cannot have it both ways.. Or at least they should not be able to.
The SECOND the Government does something like this they are now in VIOLATION of the 1st Amendment! They are restricting (by law) peoples RIGHT to Free speech!
Hello Mr. Orwell!
The Truth is a Virus!!!
The problem isn't "common decency" (which isn't common anyway as politics degenerates into schoolyard name calling), but the current post truth era where we have Orwellian "alternative facts" and "truth isn't truth." We need to have some way to challenge/flag postings like "Obama is a Muslim not born in the USA who runs a pediophile pizza parlor" or "Trump sold Trump-blessed American prayer flags via a televangelist, and has made plans to have the Army close down The Washington Post and use the Army to make him president for life." Fact is fact, and truth is truth, and must be preserved if democracy is to survive. Fact and truth have nothing to do with "common decency" and propriety.
It's stupid. I can call you a dick, a cunt, an asshole, a fuckwit, a retard, a moron, an imbecile, a douchebag, a jackass, or a buffoon, and that's all perfectly acceptable and not hate speech. But I can't call you a n*gger or a f*ggot, because hate speech. But you can call me a cracker or a breeder, because hand waving.
Who the fuck makes up this bullshit? Idiots with too much time on their hands and an IQ smaller than their waist band.
Itâ(TM)s not a question of âoefree speech.â Theyâ(TM)re consistently not honoring and adhering to their own TOS rules. Because theyâ(TM)re always afraid of conservative backlash.
See here's the problem.
The definition of hate speech is a moving target and subject to the whim of those in charge at the time OR pressure from whatever voter demographic yells the loudest.
Today, you can't say anything meaningful without someone claiming to be offended by it.
Once enough folks claim to be offended, ( -waves wand- politico correcto ! ) it magically becomes hate speech.
Just. Like. That.
People don't need the government to protect them from words or ideas. If anything, the government needs to take a good look at itself and realize what a laughing stock shit show it has become.
The first step to fixing a problem is realizing you have one.
If he was a Republican that sentence would have made that very clear....
Welcome to Liberal Socialist Communist thinking.. China would be proud.
5 out of 6 people enjoy Russian Roulette & 6 out of 7 Dwarfs are not Happy
Yeah, but Senator Wyden doesn't like that the meanies get to spew their ignorant crap, so instead of punishing the people that are "editorializing" he's going after the publishers.
Because clearly Mark Zuckerberg needs a few more congressional subpoenas because people are mean on the Internet.
How is this not a clear violation of the First Amendment again? Sure sounds like he's trying to get Congress to make a law abridging free speech, and it won't hold up to the so-called "yelling fire in a theater" test as it's not endangering public safety or willful negligence. In the best case, it's trolling or extreme ignorance - worst case is this is a back door for government abuse of power to go after political enemies and malcontents because you don't like what they're saying.
Who is the arbiter of what's "decent" under this law anyway?
Oh, Senator Wyden. I voted for you once upon a time when you hadn't gone full idiot...
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
Enjoy mad max millennials. Maybe your grandkids will rediscover real liberal principles. Or Not. At least it's an answer to the Fermi paradox
Wyden is is lying about what the CDA is designed to do.
Social media cannot exist without the legal protections of Section 230. That protection is not constitutional, it's statutory.
Civil libertarians have waiting 20 years for this shoe to drop. Back when the CDA was being debated we predicted that this is *EXACTLY* what would happen. It was never meant to protect freedom of speech. Stop pretending it was. The Communications Decency Act was passed with the goal of protecting minors from online exposure to indecent material.
This law was a legal bait-and-switch setup. Step 1: Pass a law that mirrors something the constitution already guarantees. Step 2: Claim that the protection is statutory not constitutional. Step 3: Remove or amend the law and now you can claim that you can regulate that thing.
I want them to get rid of the CDA because this was never something congress should have had the power to legislate. Twitter, Facebook, Google, Instagram - none of them are liable for what their users post any more than the owner of a building is liable for the graffiti that is placed on it, or the newspaper is liable for the opinions in the letters to the editor. This is a cornerstone of democracy.
You can't reasonably argue that the 1st amendment prevents congress from passing law that inhibits freedom of speech, but also claim that manufacturers of pens are liable for the speech, or manufacturers of loudspeakers are liable for the sounds that come out of them, or web site hosts are responsible for what people post on them, or bulletin boards are responsible for the notes people tack onto them, or that telephone companies liable for the content of calls people make, etc.
Remember that the CDA set the legal stage for the DMCA, which is what makes it possible for the RIAA and MPAA to start using ISPs as copyright police. With the DMCA, these new "statutory protections" that we didn't ever need now had limits. ISPs are now only protected from liability if they cooperate with copyright holders demands, and if they take down "hacking" or circumvention tools.
Wyden is claiming that section 230 is a free-speech clause, but it really isn't. It's called the Commications Decency Act for a reason! They wanted to regulate what is "decent." Section 230 also grants ISPs immunity from liability if they *restrict* someone's free speech. Without section 230, they might be legally liable if they block someone's speech! We are better off without it.
Go ahead, try to stop Americans from cursing online, or posting porn, or posting whatever you want to call "indecent." Does Mr. Wyden really think that is even possible?
I heartily invite you to go and read the first amendment, and then go fuck yourself. You didn't "the law that allows sites to be unfettered free speech marketplaces", you had NO LEGAL POWER to forbid it.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
If all you have is the power to write new laws, every problem looks like a nail.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
What's a 'nagger'? I think he meant 'n.i.g.g.e.r'. It's a terrible word, that has historically been used to denigrate a group of people as less than human. Because of this, some people arbitrarily define its use as hate speech. But, "hate speech" is also being used to label any type of information that specific groups, mostly on the left, disagree with, in an attempt to apply censorship. This has muddied the waters, and has actually been counterproductive to those pushing for hate speech laws.
[edit] Oh, I see why you typed "nagger" now. Slashdot has a "lameness filter" that keeps you from posting if you actually spell the word out. Really, I doubt this lameness filter does much of anything, considering the number of lame, n-word related posts we see here on a regular basis. Whatevs
sig: sauer
An astute observation. You're one smart motherfucker!
sig: sauer
Really struggling to find something substantive in that comment that might have justified the "Insightful" mod. You're sort of in the neighborhood of the Paradox of Tolerance, but not that it shows in your comment.
I think the consequences should be to your personal reputation, and the largest problem of the Internet is that there are too many people who don't care about their personal reputation or who feel no accountability for saying negative and destructive things. In the case of trolls, I'm not sure "people" is a meaningful label, since they can just spawn fresh sock puppets so quickly.
In terms of a constructive solution (which always seems lost and even laughable [a bid for "Funny" mods?] around today's Slashdot), I think the solution is to help the negative folks render themselves invisible. I think karma should be enhanced to be a kind of multidimensional metric of EPR (Earned Public Reputation). You would be able to control what sort of people are visible to you and who therefore can intrude into your attention and consume your time.
Personally speaking, I would like to set my visibility threshold a little above the default value. I think the default should be just slightly positive, which means that newbies would mostly be visible to each other, but they could quickly earn the normal level of visibility, perhaps merely by existing for a few weeks even if they don't earn any favorable mods. However by setting my own bar a little higher I would be able to focus on people who I'm more interested in. For example, I would like to favor people who earn funny mod points, even if a particular comment hasn't been so modded.
Time's up. ADSAuPR, atAJG.
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
In the past, Ron Wyden has defended constitutional rights. It is sad to see him now supporting censorship.
He is up for reelection in 2020.
Who is the arbiter of what's "decent" under this law anyway?
Allow me to condense Sen, Wyden's remarks;
"We must infringe upon your freedom to prevent those we deem Nazis from infringing upon your freedom." -- Sen. Ron Wyden (D) 2018
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
I would rather not. There have been conspiracy groups forever. JFK assasinations, moon landings, UFOs, con-trails, you name it. It was _never_ a real threat until they started banning it. By banning it they have given more credibility to this guy than anything they could have ever done by just letting him get on his soap box weekly.
Not really. "Social Justice", at least as it is practiced today, appears to be not concerned with equal opportunity but equal OUTCOMES. The only way to make THAT happen is to remove those three aspirations of classical liberalism: political freedom, civil liberty, and economic freedom. It is a belief that somehow everyone is a victim and everyone else owes you something. To to promote it, they foster "identity politics" where people are not individuals, but just parts of either victim or oppressor "groups." And to "rectify it", they seek government and corporate assistance, demonize anyone who disagrees, and seek to shut down any rational conversation in any way possible- like appealing to emotion instead of facts and banning speech. Gone is individual responsibility and gratefulness, replaced with blame, sadness, and outrage. That is the modern social justice warrior, at least as I have observed.
Interesting how "liberals" seem to have a serious problem with concepts like "freedom of speech"... and "free association"... and "due process".
Why is that? Because they're not liberals. They're illiberals. They don't advocate for freedom but rather against freedom.
They do not idealize freedom but rather are threatened by it.
Real liberals value freedom... liberty... hence "liberal". These people are ideological skinwalkers that ripped the flesh off some classical liberals and have been wearing their rotting skin around as masks ever since.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
It was _never_ a real threat until they started banning it.
I would say they were never a threat until POTUS started spreading them. These conspiracy theories have become a strategy to hold on to power when the shit hits the fan, and at the expense of the mental health of his base.
It stopped being funny when peopleâ(TM)s irrational xenophobia dominated over logic. Violent crime rates were at all time lows, even the economy was coming back. Yet 47% of voted to make a nationalist xenophobe president. Today the national suicide rate is at all time highs. Drug deaths are at all time highs. Rural unemployment is high. Yet people are doubling down on this idiot at he boosts the economy on credit card while destroying the environment.
moon landings, UFOs, con-trails, you name it
You misspelled CHEMtrails. I see you're just another stoge of the deep state trying to spread misinformation: downplaying it by changing its name. We're on to you. and I'm safe protected from my tinfoil hat AND tinfoil breathing mask. Sure that make it a little hard to breathe and
SJW n. One who posts facts.
It's a very complex example to use as well, because there's a weird cultural double standard: A black person saying it is perfectly acceptable, but a white person saying it has a good chance of getting them fired. Or punched in the face. So you couldn't just ban the word with a filter, you'd need someone to then judge if the speaker is dark enough to get away with it.
I've read a couple of articles on conservative sites about flag placement, and recall they stressed the importance of flying the Christian flag above the American one. The intended message of doing so is "I'm a Christian first, and an American second."
Someone should tell that senator that his ability to make laws ends at the borders of the US, the internet doesn't.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Before WWII most people regarded fetuses as people, with the result that abortion could attract very serious punishments as a crime, and struggled to believe Jews were people. Nowadays the fashion has reversed in most countries, although the allegations of anti-semitism on the left in the UK does suggest it's not transitioned completely.
So who was right? There isn't a 'right' answer; it all boils down to your metaphysical beliefs, which may be INFORMED by science (when does the brain stem develop, when is the embryo old enough that an identical twin can no longer happen) but it's always your choice...
If the possibility of a violent response by the proles to language that does not call for violence is a legitimate reason for limiting free speech, then free speech has ceased to exist, because the fear of being charged with 'incitement' for what was merely strong language will be crippling.
All leftist speech are dog whistles for class hatred, are endorsement of policies which result in famine, and are violence enacted upon my minority body.
This will be my claim when you knock down these protections, and you can't argue against it because you're white and I'm not.
your thin skin doesn't make me a troll
No, that's just the propaganda. SJ as it is practiced today is concerned with allowing any number of minuscule fragments of the population to broadcast specious complaints in a manner so as to outshout and "reform" the bulk of humanity.
You expect other from BeauHD why?
How can we have a moon if the world is flat?
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
*Hangnail
I think you're confusing hate speech vs. opinion. Retard (if legitimate), n*gger, cracker, and f*ggot are all targeting things people can't change about themselves. Calling someone a moron is a matter of opinion and one can likely become not a moron to the person calling them such a term, but I can't change the fact that I'm black. Hate speech is clearly the attempt to down someone and marginalize them for something they can't change.
I think it's more the suitcases of cash from Ceciel Richards in this case. It's pretty obvious what this is really about.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
What's made conspiracy theories and Alex Jones in particular "a real threat" recently is their widespread harassment of the families of mass shooting victims, driven by the relatively recent rise of false flag conspiracy theories around mass shootings (the shooting was a false flag, therefore the families of the fake people who didn't die are "crisis actors," therefore let's harass the shit out of them until they admit their ties to the Illuminati!).
Alex Jones in particular has driven many targeted harassment campaigns against these family members.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
A black person saying it is perfectly acceptable
No it fucking isn't. Anybody trying that shit anywhere I work or at a publicly funded service I use will get told to stop using the word.
If they even suggest that they're allowed to use it because of their colour then there'll be a formal racism complaint. No, your skin colour does not give you fucking privileges.
Time for a primary challenger!
I would rather not. There have been conspiracy groups forever. JFK assasinations, moon landings, UFOs, con-trails, you name it. It was _never_ a real threat until they started banning it. By banning it they have given more credibility to this guy than anything they could have ever done by just letting him get on his soap box weekly.
Except reality doesn't work that way. Being banned from a restaurant does not make you more powerful. It means you'll have to go to a different restaurant.
If you get banned from every restaurant in town, you need to admit that you have a problem.
Facebook, et al. are losing more users by not banning Infowars than by banning them.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
How is this not a clear violation of the First Amendment again? Sure sounds like he's trying to get Congress to make a law abridging free speech, and it won't hold up to the so-called "yelling fire in a theater" test as it's not endangering public safety or willful negligence. In the best case, it's trolling or extreme ignorance - worst case is this is a back door for government abuse of power to go after political enemies and malcontents because you don't like what they're saying.
Oh, that's just it though - it's not the government censoring your speech, it's the government forcing a third party to censor your speech. Totally different. /sarcasm
And as long as FOSTA-SESTA stands, they already have their foot in the door.
BTW, FOSTA-SESTA passed passed the House with a vote of 388-25[13] and the Senate with a vote of 97-2.
There's almost no chance of a new "Communications Decency Act" that targets Hate Speech not passing if it gets introduced.
Allow me to condense Sen, Wyden's remarks;
"We must infringe upon your freedom to prevent those we deem Nazis from infringing upon your freedom." -- Sen. Ron Wyden (D) 2018
Or, to paraphrase a much earlier statement:
"We had to destroy your freedom in order to save it." -- after a quote attributed to an unnamed major regarding the destruction of Ben Tre in 1968
It does, however, make an even earlier use of the metaphor, from the Atlanta Daily World in 1940 -- "We won't save democracy by killing it ... and we won't make American democracy worth saving by destroying it in the so-called attempt to save it." -- a little ironic, seeing how the sentiment is inverted.
How is this not a clear violation of the First Amendment again? Sure sounds like he's trying to get Congress to make a law abridging free speech,
He's a bit off-center, but he does circle around a good point: is Facebook a common carrier, carrying everything legal without discrimination and free from liability, or is it a publisher, exercising editorial discretion, and thus liable for libel and incitement?
Well, Facebook, pick one.
worst case is this is a back door for government abuse of power to go after political enemies and malcontents because you don't like what they're saying.
Oh, I'd say that's the blatant intent - Wyden wants the power to crush opposing views. As the right has been saying for some time now to the left "you're not going to like the new rules". Some of us are old enough to remember when the right-wing religious wackos has the influence to censor stuff they didn't like. Why the left wants to return to those days is pretty obvious - they imagine they'll always be in power.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
I live in "flyover" country and travel for work to the coasts. I haven't noticed any geographic correlation to racism. People who are racist in the abstract, vs peoples they have never met are more common in places you don't meet those peoples, but people who are racist against peoples they meet everyday seem as evenly distributed as rude drivers.
I work with many former military. Those that were deployed actually seem less racist and sexist than average. Hard to hate people who have your back I would guess. The ones that didn't deploy, or drove drones might have a slight uptick in anti Arab sentiment. Easier to hate people you don't meet but still have to kill maybe?
Anyway my experience is that the simmering cauldron of hatred that is the militaristic midwest is a boogie man. Another form of distrust for people you haven't met many of.
refactor the law, its bloated, confusing and unmaintainable.
And yet on /. your post demonstrates the hypocrisy.
"n*gger, cracker, and f*ggot". They are all targeting things people can't change yet only one doesn't have an asterisks.
Hate speech is clearly ambiguous and inconsistent.
If you get banned from every restaurant in town, you need to admit that you have a problem.
Pretty sure that was the message some certain southerners wanted a certain other group to learn.
Facebook, et al. are losing more users by not banning Infowars than by banning them.
Do you have any reason to believe that or are you just making it up? These groups have been on those platforms since the beginning and it has never been a problem until we got onto this new censorship push.
I'm not confusing anything; I think "hate speech" is a nebulous category with no functional definition, and is completely useless as a result.
Your "things that can't be changed" theory is cute, but fails even a cursory examination. I can insult you for being short or tall, fast or slow. I can call a bald guy "baldy". I can call a freckly chick "freckles". I can call an Irishman a drunken bastard, an Englishman a limey, an Italian a dago, and a Frenchman a frog. None of those would be classified as "hate speech" anywhere in the world. But I call you a n**ger and oh my fucking god it's the end of the world. Because apparently you need special protection or something. I dunno, ask the fuckwits who made up the rule.
Twitter seems to think so.
How about Sarah Jeong's brazen racist hate speech? Not only is that is okay with social media, it got her a job at the NY Times.
Alex Jones is not the only conservative censored from social media. Far from it. Numerous more moderate conservatives have also been censored.
I think it's fair to say there is a brazen double standard here.
If you get banned from every restaurant in town, you need to admit that you have a problem.
Pretty sure that was the message some certain southerners wanted a certain other group to learn.
Race is a protected class. Gullibility is not.
Even the US Supreme Court reaffirmed that hate speech doesn't exist and censoring someone using the term "hate speech" violates the first amendment. You have a freedom of speech, you do NOT have freedom from being offended, see Supreme Court outcome of the Larry Flynt case.
From the US Supreme Court case "Matal vs Tam" aka "the slants case" the Justices verdict:
[The idea that the government may restrict] speech expressing ideas that offend ⦠strikes at the heart of the First Amendment. Speech that demeans on the basis of race, ethnicity, gender, religion, age, disability, or any other similar ground is hateful; but the proudest boast of our free speech jurisprudence is that we protect the freedom to express âoethe thought that we hate.â
A law found to discriminate based on viewpoint is an âoeegregious form of content discrimination,â which is âoepresumptively unconstitutional.â ⦠A law that can be directed against speech found offensive to some portion of the public can be turned against minority and dissenting views to the detriment of all. The First Amendment does not entrust that power to the governmentâ(TM)s benevolence. Instead, our reliance must be on the substantial safeguards of free and open discussion in a democratic society.
So it doesn't matter what media says or state morons try to pass laws... Anyone taking it to court would automatically win as the Supreme Court has ruled more than once like over 20 times that there is no such thing as hate speech and any laws enacted would be found unconstitutional by the Supreme Court.
I have been taking a look at Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. I am not seeing where it would disallow Infowars content.
Alex Jones may be personally responsible for his false statements. But I cannot see where the carrier is required to censor such content.
I wish the Senator was more specific.
Please, jackass senator looking for payment, I encourage you to repeal 230 and cause millions of Americans to lose trillions in retirement investment, and devastate the Internet and computer industries, where the US is a shining example of growth precisely because we did give safe harbor to sites rather than let them incur immediate liability for posters posting copyright stuff.
Go ahead. Wreck all that for the dishonorable and un-American desire of you to censor.
Un freaking believable.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Well, now that we know the National Enquirer disguised a $100K+ campaign contribution as a purchase of rights to publish a Playboy bunny's story, how about the rest of their 'journalism' throughout the election.
The Rachel Maddow segment linked below lists a bunch of blatantly false cover stories that ran throughout the 2016 election season. Now, even if you hate Maddow, and think she's a 'left-wing version of Fox' (she isn't, but hey...), you can't argue with her interpretation of what was on the covers of these tabloids. Okay, so nobody actually believes tabloid covers, but still - they were published for a reason, and it would be hard to argue that that reason was anything other than to make Trump look good and Clinton look bad (even if it's just by boring the ugliest images they could find of her face deep into your subconscious). So, free speech, right? Well, there are certainly limits. So where would this fall? And does the truth or falsehood (and whether the speaker is aware of that falsehood) relevant?
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-ma...
Posted from my Android phone. Oh, I can change this? There, that's better...
so if you say something like "lawyers are the scum of the earth, they should all be loaded on buses and driven off a cliff" , which is most likely not a real call to action, is hate speech?
The term "hate speech" means nothing if clear and direct expression of hate against any group is not covered by hate speech. The lawyer example is obviously hate speech.
Any time you say "this entire group is scum", any reader anywhere may take that as a call to action; it is inherently provocative.
Which is why you cannot ban hate speech, because it's not the fault of the writer what people do with what they say, and trying to hide what people think only inflames passions in the end.
At least you can mock someone online saying they hate group X, which defuses the potential impact of what they say. Can't do that if they are only saying it t other people out of sight.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I can't wait until indecency is anything that goes against traditionalist values. Don't want to start a family? Hate speech!
So, "Keep your friends close and your enemies closer" is just a throw away statement now.
Nothing bad ever happened because of prohibition and/or enforced secrecy, right? Yeah, nothing. Ever.
When the only tool you have is a claw hammer every problem starts to look like the back of someone's skull.
Actually uphold the constitution by punishing corrupt politicians actively working to subvert it?
Race is a protected class. Gullibility is not.
Which "Race" is protected? And, why only the one you name? IF ALL of them are protected then the "protection" is meaningless.
Besides, isn't race a social construct?
If that favorite meme of the Left is true then protecting a race is like making a gas mask to protect against Unicorn farts.
Running with Linux for over 20 years!
I should have worded it better, but there's still a weird double standard. Consider the Kendrick Lamar incident: He was able to perform a song with the forbidden word in, but when a white fan tries to sing exactly the same words she was immediately stopped due to crowd anger.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/new...
Race is a protected class. Gullibility is not.
Which "Race" is protected? And, why only the one you name?
"Protected class" doesn't refer to any one race. It refers to categories which cannot be used as a basis for discrimination. Race is one of those categories.
IF ALL of them are protected then the "protection" is meaningless.
Huh? It means your race (or whichever class you are looking at) cannot be used as a basis to refuse service, be it African American, Caucasian, Pacific Islander, etc. That's pretty fucking meaningful in my book.
Ever have anyone close to you do it? I wish I had mod points today, but alas I don't, so for now all I can do is call you a dickhead.
Only corporate internet. Individuals retain their right of free speech, and hopefully this means that we may return to the days before walled gardens.
... is Facebook a common carrier, carrying everything legal without discrimination and free from liability, or is it a publisher, exercising editorial discretion, and thus liable for libel and incitement?
Or is it a private service offered voluntarily to members of the public so long as they follow the service provider's terms, with the freedom to kick people out (or not) at their own discretion for violating those terms and no undue liability for what other people may choose to say?
This attempt to force a choice between "common carrier" vs. "liable for what other people say" is a false dichotomy. To begin with, no one should be legally liable for anything that is said—that's a fundamental part of freedom of speech, that liability follows only for what one does, not what one says. The service provider cannot be an "accessory" to a speech-crime which does not, and cannot, exist in our legal system according to the Constitution. In addition, failing to stop someone from speaking, even when one has the technical capability to do so, is not even remotely close to the same thing as endorsing or promoting that speech. Each participant is clearly speaking on their own behalf, not on behalf of the service provider. The closest traditional equivalent would be something like "letters to the editor". There is no obligation to publish every such letter one receives, but even letters containing hateful speech might be published (unconditionally or selectively) for the purpose of providing context for a response, or in order to give the public a chance to respond, without making the platform responsible for the content of the letter.
"The state is that great fiction by which everyone tries to live at the expense of everyone else." - Bastiat
Easy, the moon is fixed in the firmament... duh!
It wasn't then and it doesn't have to be in the future. People act like the status quo is some natural law- it changes with time and not always how you want it to.
No, I know people who have overdosed and various other ways of dying. Never a suicide. I understand how it could feel if you may be the reason the person did it however I also believe that people are free to do whatever they want to their self, as long as it doesn't harm other people. As somebody else replied "Sorry you lost someone but you seem to more concerned with how it bothers YOU than how THEY felt". That AC makes a very good point, people who support the people they know and love could have possibly prevented it. Some people want to die and don't give a fuck what others think about it. It shouldn't be a crime to kill yourself, while I'm at it ill point out that if people didn't go ape shit crazy over suicide.... People wouldn't do it for attention!!!
Well, only one of those words have been used in some form or another to classify me as property, so continuing to call me that is continuing to say I'm not a fellow human but property. It's not always exactly what you say, but also includes some historical context. When speech is used to marginalize people and put them in a group that's historically been disenfranchised against both legally and illegally, then it's likely hate speech. Not saying cracker can't be used as hate speech, it's just doesn't carry much weight when it's towards the historical perpetrator. That being said, if you're a white guy that works in an organization that's predominantly black and you get called a cracker, you've likely got a case on your hand.
Or is it a private service offered voluntarily to members of the public so long as they follow the service provider's terms, with the freedom to kick people out (or not) at their own discretion for violating those terms and no undue liability for what other people may choose to say?
Newpapers are liable for what they choose to print, even they parts not written by newspaper employees (which is most of the paper, these days).
There's only one carve-out in the law for not being liable for content you distribute, and it's not at all clear it should apply to Facebook the way it does to an ISP.
To begin with, no one should be legally liable for anything that is said
Oh, you're a nut job. Nevermind.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Well, only one of those words have been used in some form or another to classify me as property
No, it hasn't. The word we used for that was "slave". It's descended from the word Slav; named after a bunch of white dudes in Europe who were property much earlier in our history than "you" were. The word "n**ger" does not and never has meant "slave". There were plenty of free n*ggers who themselves owned slaves. Some free n*ggers in America even owned white slaves. Don't confuse the two words.
It's not always exactly what you say, but also includes some historical context.
It would be useful if you actually understood the historical context. For example:
Not saying cracker can't be used as hate speech, it's just doesn't carry much weight when it's towards the historical perpetrator.
Someone who actually understood the "historical context" would know that us crackers were neither the only nor the worst "perpetrators" of slavery. You n*ggers enslaved each other for far longer, and half the slaves we got were purchased from you. Plus those dune-coons over in the middle east did it for longer and were much more brutal about it. And let's not forget that North Africa in the 15th to 18th century captured and sold around 1.5 million white slaves. But "n*gger" and "dune-coon" are hate speech, while cracker still is not. Because reasons.
I appreciate that you're trying to think seriously about this and trying to put forth some kind of reason for it, but these are all post-hoc rationalizations; things people tell themselves to justify a position they already hold. None of them are sufficient to explain the differentiation.
Ok, now you're starting to grasp at straws here to justify your racism (which wasn't as obvious until this last post). So here's some context: http://avalon.law.yale.edu/19t... this is the Confederate constitution. Notice how negros of the African race are considered property. Notice negro is used as an adjective to slave, as to point out that other races of slave weren't to allowed but the black man is OK. Now, let's jump over to the term cracker. https://www.npr.org/sections/c... This word as it turns out is of European (i.e. white) decent. It's not a term black people made up, it's a term you called yourselves centuries before African slaves hit the Americas. Now as for the middle East and other parts of Africa, these terms aren't used to describe black or white people at all. The closest you're going to get are Nigerians, but even there it's not the hard n*gger that whites use in anger to describe Africans here in the States and parts of the UK. You wanting to call people racists terms is nothing more than you attempting to exert superiority over others. I could at least give white people credit for confusion with n*gger and nigga where that hard "er" crosses that line between cute and racial slur, but that's not even the case you're trying to make. They have an argument to make as when you're not using the term everyday, they're the same to you and at least they're trying to beore culturally inclusive, but you're just being a dick.
Ok, now you're starting to grasp at straws here to justify your racism (which wasn't as obvious until this last post).
Ah, yes. As soon as your arguments are exposed for the fraud that they are it's time to whip out the "you're a racist!" card. Nice one. Sure you don't want to call me a nazi, too? Then I can call you a pedophile and things should go swimingly from there.
So here's some context: http://avalon.law.yale.edu/19t... this is the Confederate constitution. Notice how negros of the African race are considered property.
Duh. They were property at the time.
Notice negro is used as an adjective to slave, as to point out that other races of slave weren't to allowed but the black man is OK.
Now that's just stupid. The fact that the law at that point in time only allowed for the enslavement of blacks in no way means that "n*gger" is synonymous with slave. Nor does it change the fact that there were free blacks. Nor does it change the fact that free blacks were themselves often slaveholders. Nor does it change the fact that at an earlier time there were white slaves, some of whom were owned by blacks. All of which you just conveniently ignored in you oh-so-honest search for "context".
Now, let's jump over to the term cracker. https://www.npr.org/sections/c... This word as it turns out is of European (i.e. white) decent. It's not a term black people made up, it's a term you called yourselves centuries before African slaves hit the Americas.
That's right, it's OUR word, and you're not allowed to use it. You racist bastard.
You wanting to call people racists terms is nothing more than you attempting to exert superiority over others.
I have absolutely no interest in calling anyone "racist terms". I've never called anyone a n*gger, a kike, a spic, a chink, a dune-coon, or a wop. I did jokingly call friends fags, but that's about it. I also had a good friend who insisted on referring to me as "my nigga"; even in that context I never responded in kind because I think it's a stupid word which should be retired from the lexicon. But IF I wanted to use it I should be able to do so. Forbidding speech because you think it's "hateful" is not just retarded, it's fucking evil.
I could at least give white people credit for confusion with n*gger and nigga where that hard "er" crosses that line between cute and racial slur, but that's not even the case you're trying to make. They have an argument to make as when you're not using the term everyday, they're the same to you and at least they're trying to beore culturally inclusive, but you're just being a dick.
You're the cunt arguing for speech codes, so yeah, I will definitely be a dick towards you. If you weren't creating arbitrary categories of forbidden speech and trying to force them on others we wouldn't have this problem.
To begin with, no one should be legally liable for anything that is said
Oh, you're a nut job. Nevermind.
Care to explain? I always thought you supported the freedom of speech. Perhaps I was wrong about that, but I'm hoping you simply misunderstood.
One is not free to speak if one can legally be punished for what one said.
There's only one carve-out in the law for not being liable for content you distribute...
Yeah—the First Amendment, which applies to everyone, even Facebook. Regardless of whether it's considered Facebook's speech or the users' speech, it's still speech.
"The state is that great fiction by which everyone tries to live at the expense of everyone else." - Bastiat
I thought this had been fought out half a century or more ago with the great "Pornography" debates, "I know it when I see it," is not a usable definition. No good definition appeared so the banning attempts sort of er "petered out" over the subsequent decades.
I discussed the same things 20 years ago with regards to spam. What *I* might call spam somebody else might call "information", A definition in that case centered around the word "unsolicited".
Now we are back with a new issue that has no solid definition possible, "Hate Speech." "I don't like it so it must be hate speech," still is not a type of statement that makes sense. I actually like to see people posting hate speech. It can tell me to rate their opinions about as high as what I daily deposit in the toilet. Some things that are hate speech today were normal modes of address in the 40s and 50s, the N-words, the F-words (ending in "t" and "y"), and so forth. If somebody my age uses those words I discount it somewhat - they're simply not bothering to school themselves to new norms because at least some of the terms were not extreme pejoratives. On the other hand I figure somebody much younger doing this as a person I don't want to be around, I close up any business I may have with it and go elsewhere.
Trying to make "hate speech" a banned item violates at the very least the spirit of the 1st amendment (if corporations are guilty) if not the letter (if governments are involved), is a fools game and actually removes valuable information from the table. Hint, what they think is good is worth a very close examination before believing them, even if they say a new smartphone.is good. Regardless, it the same old damn fool idiotic "if I don't like it then it should be banned" crap all over again. After more than 7 decades watching this parade it's time it stopped. But, just because I don't like it, it should not be banned. It should just be ignored.
{^_^}
I didn't call you a racists because my argument is or isn't falling apart, I called you a racists solely due to your desire to not distinguish racial slurs used to cause deliberate harm to people who are biologically different and words that are used to voice your opinion of a person. You know damn well that n*igger, which is very far from the Latin root, was and is used by whites, particularly in the USA, to describe blacks that they feel are inferior to whites. It literally has nothing to do with your red herrings of "well 10 black people owned slaves" while ignoring the tens of thousands of white slave owners. You've brought back this argument "whites were slaves too" while ignoring the fact that "whites" aren't used as adjectives to describe the types of slaves enshrined into the law of the land. And Freeman were still called n*gger by whites in people, literature, campaigns, and even Presidents on record as recently as Nixon and allegedly as Trump. So, you want to scream "whaaa, he called me cracker and no one will sensor him but I can't call him a n*gger!" Then be prepared for no one to listen when you're still reaping the benefits of your, assumingly, ancestors being able to call black people, or anyone non-white, whatever they feel without persecution, discriminate against them, red line them, push them out of your neighborhoods, beat them, and even kill them without prosecution (and no, those select few that were don't make up for the vast majority that weren't). With all that being said, I still hold my argument that cracker is in fact a racial slur, but cracker can also be a food, n*gger is NEVER used for anything else but to disenfranchise a group of people that merely have more melanin than yourself. So, if you need a definition of hate speech: any perjoritive language used to attack a person on the basis of a protected attribute. You can define further what those protected attributes are, but currently they're race, sex, religion, disability, national origin, ethnic origin, and more recently sexual orientation, and gender identity. You can amend/prune the attribute list as much as you like but the definition of hate speech won't change. So in the future, if you start calling people gooblygoocks because they're gay and you disagree with that or think you're superior because you're a heterosexual, then gooblygoocks will be considered hate speech. If you need further explanation, well, then you're likely a moron.
A tort is not a criminal punishment - you can be sued for things you say, and that's not the government restricting speed. Fraud is, though, and should be. Also, all absolutists beliefs are wrong. :)
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.