To the extent that someone supports the status quo and resists change to it, their behaviour is conservative.
How you label them and whatever you mean by 'liberal status quo' sounds more like a problem with labels and definitions than a paradox or contradiction.
Do you distinguish between totalitarian and despotic, or are you looking for emphasis?
In as much as any limitation to a right is a movement towards totalitarianism you've said nothing of substance. You've failed to address other examples of limitations to free speech - which makes it seem as though you have no objection to them. If so then it seems your objection is simply that this is change, a difference from the status quo and that you're tarting up this motive with a veneer of principle.
Marxists/leftists/commies/progressives/whatever
I see. In the absence of a cogent rebuttal, you'll label me according to the pejorative that best fits and then argue with your definition of same. Little wonder you fear censure.
who demand that we give up our rights
Exaggeration. I have talked about limitations on rights, not their removal. Unless your equating any limitation with the complete loss, in which case where do you stand on libel, slander, truth-in-advertising, contracts, agreements etc.?
simply move the goalposts
Oh, that's what _they_ do, do they?
and demand more
You counter 'argument' is to reject the principle of limiting rights in the case of harm for fear that the implementation is bound to be abused. At least that's the most charitable reading I can come to of your brief rant.
I could argue with it, but it feels too much like putting words in your mouth or creating a straw man. I'll leave it here.
Epithets aside, you seem to take a more absolute approach to limitations on rights and 'argue' your position by exaggeration - equating any limitation on speech with 'burning' someone. You don't address the other examples of limitations to speech that I provided - I'm not sure if that's because you consider that they, too, are equivalent to burning someone or whether your eagerness to share your opinion on one part of what I said overwhelmed your reason and compelled you to act immediately.
Not sure if impassioned or simply simple. Well trolled. Very Poe's Law.
Conservatives, by definition, resist change and support the maintenance of the status quo.
They are the least likely to recognise the changes to society that increasingly ubiquitous communication brings and to modify their behaviour accordingly. Painting with a very broad brush, even if they do recognise the external changes, they are more likely to resist or resent any requirement to change their own behaviour.
I would expect more conservatives to be moderated (banned, cautioned, censored etc.) _by_definition_.
Not making any value judgements, just pointing out that your observation is in line with expectations.
---
For extra points, observe that the more conservative a person is, the more likely that their ideals and comfort zone is going to diverge from social norms over time. Old(er) conservatives are more likely to be more conservative than younger.
The freedom of expression and/or speech is important and long recognised as such.
Sharing an equally long history are the various exceptions and limitations on same. To the extent that we live with other people, our rights are limited and curtailed to prevent harm to others. The old 'my right to swing my arms wherever I want ends at your nose'.
Among traditional limitations on speech (and these vary historically and by location) are slander and libel, false advertising and ingredient listings and the breaking of contracts and agreements. At different times these have been abused and used as proxies for simply silencing unwanted expression rather than actually harmful expression. All limitations to rights must be constantly challenged and held to account for fear of abuse. This is not unique to hate speech limitations.
The rise of communication technology now means that what I 'say' can be more easily seen and heard than at any point in history. This is acting as a kind of force magnifier on behaviour that previously was only slightly harmful. We've become more conscious of the impact of repetition from multiple sources, of hearing the same message repeated ubiquitously. What is relatively harmless when one person says it becomes less so when everyone is saying the same thing. There's evidence that some of the early differences in math ability between male and female children is the result of cultural expectations - 'girls can't do maths'.
Take increasingly ubiquitous communication, add our drive for social acceptance, leaven with echo chamber effects and you have the recipe for influence that previously was the domain only of cultural values and rarely something that an individual could influence. Recently, however, we've seen the impact that even a few people can have creating 'news' to pander to a known demographic; we've had examples of influence on elections from a handful of actors and people whipped into violence with very little effort or driven to suicide because, from their point of view 'everyone' was saying the same thing.
We recognise the need to limit speech in other areas where harm results. Defining it is difficult. In the beginning, it will be clumsy and poorly applied. It will need to be challenged, reviewed and adjusted, just as limitations to speech have been each time a shift in society has created a new need.
and have been convinced that these are their betters, and that they should look up to them?
Or that they, too, can be a member of this class if they just work hard enough. The lie of social mobility is a large part of what keeps the poor and working classes from demanding more of the upper class/es. Everyone is a temporarily embarrassed millionaire (to misquote/paraphrase Steinbeck).
As you say, they media is complicit as is the entertainment industry. Bread and circuses.
This is also probably why original democracy was NOT popularist democracy, and had a number of features, now long gone, designed to stop this very development.
From what I understand (not from the US), the majority of states only allowed white, male, landowners to vote when the republic was founded - which is kind of plutocratic, albeit with a lower threshold to entry and in a period with greater social mobility. The modern system is most certainly plutocratic, which is leaving the majority increasingly unrepresented, disenfranchised and vulnerable to populism - never mind that it's just exchanging one master for another. Already certain segments of the population have realised that the odds of success are vastly lower than the ideal and have withdrawn from the social contract.
Right and Left are part of the same ruling class. The US left pander to one segment of society; the right another - but neither are representative of those populations and have grown increasingly complacent about even keeping them marginally happy.
Power accumulates. Without mechanisms to oppose this and to maintain an equilibrium, you reach a point of imbalance where the system tips and a new equilibrium forms. A populist leader is probably the least disruptive of those, but if you keep forcing the system in one direction, you will end up with increasing crime, civil unrest, violence and revolution or civil war (if history is any guide).
Yes. And I consider the threat of violence to be violence. But that's beside the point.
You claimed that no one was calling for more gun violence. I have provided examples where people have called for teachers to be armed, and others have explicitly talked about said teachers being able to stop a shooter - not deter. Your attempt to not admit you were wrong was to try to quibble over carrying/owning and you've compounded it with arguing that deterrence isn't violence.
It doesn't matter. People have called for teachers to be armed to be able to stop, not deter, potential shooters. Not carry. Not own. Not deter.
neither built up, nor tore down, any argument there, ergo not a straw man. I was making a point; one which you, in your previous paragraph, claimed to agree with, but apparently completely missed.
I was careful to express the part I agreed with, then highlighted a sentence from the paragraph where you expressed
You can probably assume the gun isn't what's making 1/4 of criminals choose to harm or 73% of killers choose to kill
Why would I need or want to make this assumption unless it is to answer the implied question. Which is a straw man.
I tallied up the numbers in the statistics provided. If I didn't list a number for the category, there was no number provided by the FBI's statistics for that category. Blame the source, not my math
[X] is a total that includes totals from [a,b,c and d]. You've summed [a], [b] and [c] and consider the lack of [d] or being able to show that [a,b,c and d] are the only elements is a problem with the source and that you can use the numbers the way you have? I repeat my claim. Your math is bad.
There's really only one way to study it and, well, if I'm right I sure don't want that study conducted. In short, I'd love to be proven wrong, but the chance of being proven right makes me really not want to see that study done. If you follow what I'm saying
No. You could look at places where guns have been removed or restricted and looking at the stats for violent crime. In Australia, for eg, there was a brief spike immediately following the buy-back/ban and then a steady decline. It's not conclusive as there are known to be confounding factors, but if you were to take similar statistics from other cases you may be able to back your claim. Your inability to provide proof of your assertion doesn't make your assertion any more true. If you know what I'm saying.
WRT scaremongering.
You claimed an increase in gun crime will occur when/if guns are criminalised. It may seem simple to you; it may seem obvious. It's not. It's an assertion you haven't backed up with anything like evidence. For eg, show somewhere where guns were made illegal and where the use of guns by criminals increased. I've no idea what you think showing that most criminals use illegal guns shows. You need to show that removing guns from legal owners will _increase_ gun use by criminals. That was your assertion and I'm calling it scaremongering. And until you can show an argument or evidence and not simply your assertion, then that's all it is.
Removing the pool of available weapons reduces the pool of weapons available illegally.
Nothing you say about how hard that might be to implement contradicts this
The original poster said that in Australia it's nearly impossible to get an AK or AR so you can't mow down 50 people. The implication is that this is possible in the US. A weaker implication is that it has happened. It's clearly an exaggeration.
But even if they stated it plainly, it still doesn't make your argument any more correct.
You were wrong. You misread or attacked a straw man, drew conclusions from skimming or not understanding the law and provided links that were inaccurate or didn't support the argument you were making.
Then you wander off talking about bolt action fire rates. I assume you mean this to be an argument that because a bolt action rifle is more readily available in Australia that it would be possible to have a shooting like the Pulse shooting. That still doesn't contradict anything the original poster said.
Please stop. You're wrong and just digging deeper. Firearms are heavily restricted in Australia. Even bolt action rifles. It's almost impossible to obtain a semi-auto rifle. Your link to a website where you can order one with a letter from the AG doesn't disprove that. Your link to the wiki on Australian firearm law confirms what the original poster said, not what you said.
Your joke aside, owning a gun is not a violent act. Neither is carrying one
No, but I assume the purpose of arming teachers is not so that they can simply own nor just carry a gun. The implication is that in the face of a potential shooter, that teachers would use their guns to defend themselves and their students. This is violence.
Nobody's proposing ending gun violence with more gun violence. Care to try again?
Call to arm teachers. It got political. You may have heard about it. I think that Trump guy mentioned it. (not from the US; think both Democrats and Republicans are politicians and therefore lying weasels without the charm; trying for a little levity; pleasepleaseplease can this not get political?)
I haven't heard a single person advocate for more guns, that's just a strawman your kind put up
Take a deep breath. Some people are characterising the call for arming teachers or increasing police on campus/schools or hiring more security guards as adding more guns. It's cheap rhetoric, but it only works because on some level it's true.
While we can still technically buy automatic weapons, they are heavily regulated, must be registered,... due to their relative rarity, sell for $10k or more. Nobody uses their $10k gun that's registered with the federal government to mow down 50 people.
and
Have you even looked at the guns available in Australia [gunworld.com.au]?
Yeah. They are heavily regulated, must be registered, are relatively rare and consequently cost more than $10k and no-one uses them to mow down 50 people.
Without a pool of legal weapons to steal from, most criminals using guns are using single/low-capacity shotguns and older handguns.
The GP said it's 'pretty well impossible'. You even quote them. Then you find a link to where you can buy semi automatic rifles. That aren't in stock. And will only be ordered for you when you provide a letter from the Attorney General. Also, you link to a.308 you identify as a semi-auto. It's a bolt action. You'll look less like a tool if your examples show what you think they show.
You're arguing 'impossible'. That's not what the GP said.
Perhaps you should learn your own country's gun laws [wikipedia.org] before judging mine?
Have you? Because nothing in there disproves the GP.
Wouldn't you rather save more lives by addressing the underlying issues which are causing people to want to kill each other in the first place?
Yes. Agreed 100%. Guns and their availability may be a confounding factor, a force multiplier may or may not exacerbate an existing situation, but banning them without addressing the fundamental problems that give rise to violent crime is unlikely to be effective, let alone workable. At best it's damage mitigation (if you can get it to work), at worse it's sop that draws effort away from change that might actually do something.
You can probably assume the gun isn't what's making 1/4 of criminals choose to harm or 73% of killers choose to kill
Straw man. No-one is saying guns make people kill. The closest arguments are that they make it easier to kill, and so may make someone intent on harm _choose_ to escalate because it's easy and/or that they change what would have been an injury (with another weapon, or none) into a fatality.
That's 327,056 violent crimes involving guns, out of 1,248,185,
Bad math. - The total for violent crime that you report "include the offenses of murder, rape (legacy definition), robbery, and aggravated assault" (emphasis mine). You then list totals for homicide, robbery and assault. You omit rape and any other crimes included in the original that are not covered by those categories (I don't know if any exist, but as the statement uses 'include' and not, for example 'comprises' I don't think you can assume). - You further state that it is only in the category of homicide that someone died. Is that the case? If someone is dies during a robbery, is that counted as homicide (not from the US and couldn't see a definition from your links). - You claim that each defensive killing would be another person killed had they not killed in turn. You assume 100% death in whatever they were defending against. Even if every defensive shooting that resulted in a killing were against an intention to kill, from your own figures not all attempts succeed.
Your premise may be correct, but this is sloppy. Crime happens. Violent crime happens. People are killed by violent crime - sometimes deliberately. You contend that removing guns would have little effect on the numbers killed. I agree with your assertion, earlier, that focussing on the cause of violent crime is more useful and more likely to succeed than concentrating on guns alone, but I don't think your (use of) figures support your contention that guns do not have much of an impact on people killed in and by violent crime.
You go on to assume that crime is static and without easy access to a firearm (this may be true, but you simply assert it) violent crime would use another weapon.
With respect to the argument 'when it's a crime to own a gun, only criminals will own one' - this is scaremongering. It would be extraordinarily difficult to remove guns from the US. It would take a lot of effort, involve years (possibly generations) and would have a host of serious consequences, but claiming that crime would increase is an unproven assertion. In countries where it is mostly only criminals that have guns, they are mostly used among and on criminals. When you don't _need_ a gun to rob a store why make it easy for the police to identify you as a criminal when you can get away with a knife or bat? As you say, a host of violent criminals do just fine with these already.
Removing the pool of available weapons reduces the pool of weapons available illegally. No, the criminals who already have one probably won't give it up, but over time those that are held by criminals will be lost, destroyed and seized. In time there will be fewer guns to steal from legal owners and fewer in the hands of criminals. Maybe the influx of smuggled and illegally manufactured guns will meet or exceed the rate that they are removed. Maybe not. Different argument.
Whether that's feasible or the best use of resources is another matter, but I disagree with the conclusions you draw.
I'm tired of hearing "if you don't like it, don't use Facebook/android/twitter/etc"
Then perhaps you should stop making the same argument to which this is the answer.
Just because first amendment says you can't go to jail for speech does not mean private companies are allowed to censor indiscriminately
Actually, that's precisely what it means. There's no constitutional protection for forcing someone to support your speech. You can say what you like but can't compel someone to assist you. Get a soap box, go stand on a corner. Knock yourself out.
If I sent a racist text to my friend, should google be allowed to censor it or delete it?
Yes. You ask this as though the answer is obvious. This might be why you keep having the problem you describe in your first sentence.
Should Verizon be allowed to read my text and kick me off Verizon?
No. Common carrier.
Should Facebook remove private messages that "incite violence"?
Slightly different to the Google question - you ask 'should' not 'should they be allowed'. Facebook should be allowed to do what they like to your statement.
You seem to think that Google, Facebook (and perhaps, by implication, Youtube) should be treated as utilities and regulated as such. It's an interesting position. Would you like to expand on it, or are you just going to continue to argue as though it were obvious?
You've selectively quoted just 'mass murder', the GP is careful to note that this appeared to be an intention to mass murder (and the FBI define same as four or more murders without 'cooling off'). The GP is accurate and correct.
Essentially she was fired without cause and without notice.
No, she was not. Nothing in the arrangement between her and Youtube could be or should have been seen as an employer/employee. At best it's a seller/buyer and without some kind of agreement or guarantee then expecting a buyer to continue to buy your product is naive. Shooting them is a sign of a deeply disturbed mind and your support of her position is disturbing.
YouTube needs to realize we're not sheep
Ah, you're a content creator who has been affected by Youtube's decision. I am sorry. Genuinely. I think that the observation that multinational corporations have little care or concern for the people that are affected by their decisions is accurate. What I cannot understand is why you have or had anything to do with them.
that if you poke a dog with a stick long enough eventually it will bite back and while the dog will be blamed for biting it had a good reason.
Then I sincerely hope that what you've learned is that when a large corporation provides you with a free service and offers to pay a portion of the revenue they generate from your content with no contract or guarantee that expecting that to continue is foolish.
I expect that you've taken your valuable content and found alternative methods of 'monetising' it - Patreon or similar, perhaps. Maybe hosting it yourself and asking for donations. Perhaps selling directly to a buyer.
and while the dog will be blamed for biting it had a good reason.
Turn it around. You/she took money from a corporation and they didn't care about you. What exactly were you expecting?
She certainly seemed to believe this to be the case.
She produced a product which she sold to a single buyer. The buyer stopped purchasing her product. There was no contract, real or implied between them - except the usage agreement which specified that this could happen at any time. In no other situation would the buyer be described as 'taking away her income' or be considered to have any obligation to the seller.
In other industries, the seller would be expected to find another buyer or change what is being produced to match the needs of the market. The problem that I see is that the people complaining about Youtube's new policy aren't complaining about Youtube not paying for content, they are complaining that Youtube doesn't want to pay for the content they produce. It happens. Especially when what you are selling is often faddish, niche and superficial. If the content had real value, there would be other buyers. It seems more as though the people complaining have grown accustomed to being paid for being minor celebrities and when their 10 minutes of 'fame' have passed can't reconcile that.
If a thief stole your wallet
Loaded language. Youtube is not a thief. The income she may derive from the sale of her products is not the same as the money she owns. She still has her products. No-one has taken away anything except that they have declined to buy them. FFS, her videos were still being hosted. For free.
I know amateur, semi-professional and professional film makers. They produce work for their own pleasure, for art and for market - and the material they produce for market is made to appeal to the market they are attempting to sell to and whether it sells or not, whether the market changes or not, none of them think that the buyer owes them an income.
I am sorry that this woman reached the point where this was the only solution she thought she had. I am saddened that others have been hurt - those directly injured and their families and her friends and family. However, blaming Youtube is very much victim blaming.
There are only 4 states with a lower murder rate than England and Wales, and only 10 with a lower rate than Scotland. The UK, as a whole, has a lower murder rate than the US as a whole.
So yes, the UK is safer than anywhere except a few mostly rural states in the US
For the record, I don't think a ban on guns is going to be as effective in the US as in other places (like Australia) for cultural reasons, even if it could be enacted effectively. There are a number of criticisms that can be made of the fairly superficial comparison of murder rates between countries, but your rebuttal isn't among them.
Given that it started as a plutocracy and only in relatively modern times moved away from that, I'd argue that either it was always broken or it's working as intended.
The vast majority of the population have absolutely no true self-interest
Yeah. They should be interested in what _you_ think they should be interested in. I don't care if you think they are idiots, deciding that their interests are not 'true' is the sort of rhetoric that usually has decisions being made for people's 'own good'.
The self-aware minority that value liberty are being attacked on every front
Here and elsewhere you have the same 'member of a small, persecuted elite' self-identification going on. Anyone who disagrees simply fails to comprehend, because the truth is just so obvious.
Narcissist or nut of another flavour - your posts aren't pretty.
The only thing that makes sense is revolution
No. No it really does not make sense. Look, I think the US has significant problems and even so, it's still a better place to live than a lot of other places. Not the best, and not as good as some think, but better than some of its critics claim. Change that, by all means. Work on real equality. Call the corporations to heel. Reign in and dismantle the MI complex. But blood-in-the-streets revolution? FFS read some history.
as to your signature; if this is the quality of your posts, then your karma loss is entirely the result of people not liking you blood thirsty, elitist condescension.
You started off ok with the whole "corporations by definition can't restrict your freedoms"
Not wanting to be pedantic, but I'm arguing, specifically that the refusal to provide you with a service is not a restriction of your rights. It might restrict your freedom. A corporation can also, certainly, restrict freedoms and violate rights - look at the tobacco industry threatening people into silence for a literal violation of the right to free speech. Youtube restricting your videos may limit your freedom, but is not a violation or restriction of your rights.
kind of went off the rails there with 'rights being fluid & just cultural norms'
May I suggest that you take a look at the distinction between natural and legal rights? There have even been people who have argued that natural rights don't exist; that all rights are legal rights (I tend to that opinion, but admit to be little more than an interested amateur). Calling the position 'off the rails' is a little harsh.
If or when 'society' once again recognizes that fundamental rights are exactly what the Bill of Rights says they are can 'responsibilities' be expected from individuals.
I'm genuinely interested - which rights from your Bill of Rights do you think have been violated, restricted or otherwise limited?
With respect to granting rights to corporations, there's some interesting argument about whether only individuals can have rights, or whether groups can have rights (families? religions? minority groups? corporations). I tend to side on the 'only individuals can have rights', but I'm on even less knowledgeable ground here.
To your examples; 'Corporation = people'. The debate over what rights that are held by natural persons can be applied to a corporation is over a century old. Can a corporation enter into a contract with a person? Should they be taxed? Should the rights of the members of a corporation cease to exist when they act as a corporation, and if not, how are they applied while still allowing limited liability? It's complex and I certainly don't like what I see as a betrayal of the social contract with corporations. Corporations (esp. limited liability corporations) allow individuals to pool resources while limiting the risk in the case of the failure of the business. This is clearly to promote investment and to make easier (even possible) businesses that couldn't exist without such support, but to the extent that this was allowed for the betterment of society, those rights and protections come with responsibilities that I see as being increasingly ignored. But that's not really about corporations violating my rights.
'RICO laws are used to confiscate property'. A clear perversion of justice and a violation of rights to do with property and ownership. I agree, totally. I don't care for the argument that it was necessary to go after organised crime. Violation of the rights of criminals is still a violation of rights.
'Privacy rights and abortions'. I'm not sure I understand what you are arguing. You claim that rights to privacy don't exist. I'd argue that they do, it's just that they have never been defined - partly because there has never been this degree of ubiquitous surveillance. We can see that people have a belief that they have some kind of right to privacy, it's just that the laws are struggling to 'catch up'. Can Facebook use the date it collected and sell it to CA? People are outraged, but the EUALA makes it legal - just not ethical. So, I suspect, laws will be made to patch up this violation of public trust, just as similar laws have been enacted to guard medical records, tax records, information held by the government...
I see the growing body of law around privacy as an attempt to codify cultural and social values that will eventually accumulate into a definition of a fundamental right. This is the proce
I agree. The ubiquity of things like the internet and the major players on it make them similar to things like the rise of the telephone, electricity, water etc.
I'd argue that services like Facebook should probably be regulated like other utilities.
None of this has anything to do with rights or the abrogation of those. These are arguments of utility, of social contract, of standards of living.
This is not new, it's just the current version of the same process that saw the breakup of Ma Bell, saw the regulations of power and water that now exists etc. By all means argue that we need to have these companies be accountable to their communities and society. Let's talk about the cost and value of regulating these services in a similar way to other communication. But I maintain that the GP is confusing privilege for right.
Laws are starting to be censorious as in the case of the UK and EU.
You claim. The right to free speech has long been held to be subject to limitations with respect to the harm it may cause to others - libel, slander, sedition, misinformation in advertising or false claims etc. The restrictions on speech in the UK and EU have always been greater than in the US, that trend continues and in the form it always has - justified by a claim of harm to others.
There is a large culture and a lot of institutions that advocates for censorship.
'Censorship' is a bait word. You've not defined it and my attempt to ask you to actually state your position resulted in a claim that I failed to comprehend your meaning. You seem to be trying to imply that _any_ limitation on speech is censorship. Maybe you believe that to be true, but pretty much every society and government has recognised that there need to be limits on individual rights where exercising that right harms others, including speech.
People will retaliate to censors, even if it is not the government because Rights do not come from government.
While you may well have a right to express yourself, you have no right to demand that I or any other person assist you in that. Private companies can restrict what you use their services for without ever coming near your 'rights'.
You seem to arguing for the existence of natural rights. Fair enough, better thinkers than either of us have argued the same although I tend towards the other direction, but in either case Youtube restricting content is not a violation of your rights. If you want to link that to the restrictions on speech in the UK, please offer more than a hand wave or assertion. Your claim that I've failed to comprehend you is poor excuse.
To have a civil war you need two clearly defined sides. The United States is not even close to that kind of situation.
The incarceration rate in the US has been compared to states that are in the midst of civil war. Nothing else comes close. Given the inequity in sentencing based on race and you have a situation where a 'side' is being defined by default. Throw in a media that's all-but unregulated and loves to fan the flames and you have the ingredients for a fairly ugly division on class and racial lines. It won't be the 'clean' civil war of competing ideologies; it will be the 'dirty' kind of unrest and spontaneous outbreaks of violence of the oppressed.
Do YOU have an ideology that is going to lead our country to freedom, prosperity, and happiness? Well put it forward!
Not from the US and any change needs to grow internally, not be imposed externally - something that the US might want to consider with regards its foreign policy - but you might want to try moderating the demonisation of social policies. If you could shrink the income inequality, provide some kind of safety net for those at the bottom of society you'd remove some of the desperation and the 'nothing to lose' factor. If there's some way to make true-er the claim that the US is somewhere where hard work will get you somewhere and improve social mobility, then you'd get more buy in for the other values you espouse.
The thing is, there can't be change until the problems are acknowledged and I'm not sure that this has happened, yet.
You've introduced that all on your own. I was countering the GPs rhetorical statement that violence/shootings was the only response to corporatism. They were arguing for revolution, I was making a case for evolution. I am arguing that looking for quick fixes, especially violent 'fixes' are unlikely to work on problems that have taken a long time to reach the point they have.
But to your point;
culture of censorship (youtube, twitter, facebook, any social media)
All of these are private organisations, not governments. Usually, censorship and free-speech arguments revolve around governments limiting speech. If I am in a friend's home and start criticising their choice in interior decoration, there's nothing to stop the friend asking me to leave - nor would this be considered censorship. If you don't like the rules that these social media services ask you to abide by, don't use them. If you've built a business, identity or way of life on or around a service over which you have no control and provided by someone with whom you have no contract then claiming you have some kind of 'right' is stretching the use of that term to something that it doesn't usually mean.
when that freedom is restricted people will strike back
What freedom do you see being restricted by Facebook, Youtube, Twitter etc.? How is that different from any company refusing to offer or to continue to offer a service if you refuse to abide by the terms of that service? Do you consider that these companies have some kind of obligation to provide you with a service on your terms? Do you equate being arrested for saying certain things with having your video rankings on Youtube lowered for saying those things and if so, why?
Laws follow culture
So do 'rights'. They are not universal. They are a kind of cultural axiom. 'We believe these truths to be self-evident...' They cannot be argued because they are the foundation upon which arguments rest. But they can and do change.
Rights do not exist in a vacuum. Rights only exist when others agree to or with them. I see a lot of arguments about rights - demands for rights that have been infringed or abrogated, but very little about responsibilities. Demands for rights are very self-focussed. Responsibility tends to be about commitment to the community, society and culture in which you live. I see corporations as examples of rights over responsibilities - the right to profit without concern over the cost to community.
Until people stop demanding their rights and start working on their responsibilities, I'm not sure that the culture that has allowed these corporations to be successful is going to change. The US has some of the worst poverty; the greatest income inequality; the highest rate of incarceration with, at the same time, some of the worst racial imbalance in sentencing; worst healthcare outcomes of any other western country and in some statistics, are worse than traditionally totalitarian regimes and some third world countries. These have more to do with the violence you see and the talk of civil war than whether Youtube has stopped ranking your stream as highly as they did.
Slashdot Mirror
To the extent that someone supports the status quo and resists change to it, their behaviour is conservative.
How you label them and whatever you mean by 'liberal status quo' sounds more like a problem with labels and definitions than a paradox or contradiction.
It's totalitarian, despotic, and unacceptable.
Do you distinguish between totalitarian and despotic, or are you looking for emphasis?
In as much as any limitation to a right is a movement towards totalitarianism you've said nothing of substance. You've failed to address other examples of limitations to free speech - which makes it seem as though you have no objection to them. If so then it seems your objection is simply that this is change, a difference from the status quo and that you're tarting up this motive with a veneer of principle.
Marxists/leftists/commies/progressives/whatever
I see. In the absence of a cogent rebuttal, you'll label me according to the pejorative that best fits and then argue with your definition of same. Little wonder you fear censure.
who demand that we give up our rights
Exaggeration. I have talked about limitations on rights, not their removal. Unless your equating any limitation with the complete loss, in which case where do you stand on libel, slander, truth-in-advertising, contracts, agreements etc.?
simply move the goalposts
Oh, that's what _they_ do, do they?
and demand more
You counter 'argument' is to reject the principle of limiting rights in the case of harm for fear that the implementation is bound to be abused. At least that's the most charitable reading I can come to of your brief rant.
I could argue with it, but it feels too much like putting words in your mouth or creating a straw man. I'll leave it here.
Epithets aside, you seem to take a more absolute approach to limitations on rights and 'argue' your position by exaggeration - equating any limitation on speech with 'burning' someone. You don't address the other examples of limitations to speech that I provided - I'm not sure if that's because you consider that they, too, are equivalent to burning someone or whether your eagerness to share your opinion on one part of what I said overwhelmed your reason and compelled you to act immediately.
Not sure if impassioned or simply simple. Well trolled. Very Poe's Law.
Conservatives, by definition, resist change and support the maintenance of the status quo.
They are the least likely to recognise the changes to society that increasingly ubiquitous communication brings and to modify their behaviour accordingly. Painting with a very broad brush, even if they do recognise the external changes, they are more likely to resist or resent any requirement to change their own behaviour.
I would expect more conservatives to be moderated (banned, cautioned, censored etc.) _by_definition_.
Not making any value judgements, just pointing out that your observation is in line with expectations.
---
For extra points, observe that the more conservative a person is, the more likely that their ideals and comfort zone is going to diverge from social norms over time. Old(er) conservatives are more likely to be more conservative than younger.
The freedom of expression and/or speech is important and long recognised as such.
Sharing an equally long history are the various exceptions and limitations on same. To the extent that we live with other people, our rights are limited and curtailed to prevent harm to others. The old 'my right to swing my arms wherever I want ends at your nose'.
Among traditional limitations on speech (and these vary historically and by location) are slander and libel, false advertising and ingredient listings and the breaking of contracts and agreements. At different times these have been abused and used as proxies for simply silencing unwanted expression rather than actually harmful expression. All limitations to rights must be constantly challenged and held to account for fear of abuse. This is not unique to hate speech limitations.
The rise of communication technology now means that what I 'say' can be more easily seen and heard than at any point in history. This is acting as a kind of force magnifier on behaviour that previously was only slightly harmful. We've become more conscious of the impact of repetition from multiple sources, of hearing the same message repeated ubiquitously. What is relatively harmless when one person says it becomes less so when everyone is saying the same thing. There's evidence that some of the early differences in math ability between male and female children is the result of cultural expectations - 'girls can't do maths'.
Take increasingly ubiquitous communication, add our drive for social acceptance, leaven with echo chamber effects and you have the recipe for influence that previously was the domain only of cultural values and rarely something that an individual could influence. Recently, however, we've seen the impact that even a few people can have creating 'news' to pander to a known demographic; we've had examples of influence on elections from a handful of actors and people whipped into violence with very little effort or driven to suicide because, from their point of view 'everyone' was saying the same thing.
We recognise the need to limit speech in other areas where harm results. Defining it is difficult. In the beginning, it will be clumsy and poorly applied. It will need to be challenged, reviewed and adjusted, just as limitations to speech have been each time a shift in society has created a new need.
But it is necessary and it's not an aberration.
and have been convinced that these are their betters, and that they should look up to them?
Or that they, too, can be a member of this class if they just work hard enough.
The lie of social mobility is a large part of what keeps the poor and working classes from demanding more of the upper class/es. Everyone is a temporarily embarrassed millionaire (to misquote/paraphrase Steinbeck).
As you say, they media is complicit as is the entertainment industry. Bread and circuses.
This is also probably why original democracy was NOT popularist democracy, and had a number of features, now long gone, designed to stop this very development.
From what I understand (not from the US), the majority of states only allowed white, male, landowners to vote when the republic was founded - which is kind of plutocratic, albeit with a lower threshold to entry and in a period with greater social mobility. The modern system is most certainly plutocratic, which is leaving the majority increasingly unrepresented, disenfranchised and vulnerable to populism - never mind that it's just exchanging one master for another. Already certain segments of the population have realised that the odds of success are vastly lower than the ideal and have withdrawn from the social contract.
Right and Left are part of the same ruling class. The US left pander to one segment of society; the right another - but neither are representative of those populations and have grown increasingly complacent about even keeping them marginally happy.
Power accumulates. Without mechanisms to oppose this and to maintain an equilibrium, you reach a point of imbalance where the system tips and a new equilibrium forms. A populist leader is probably the least disruptive of those, but if you keep forcing the system in one direction, you will end up with increasing crime, civil unrest, violence and revolution or civil war (if history is any guide).
Ever stop to think it might be a deterrent?
Yes. And I consider the threat of violence to be violence. But that's beside the point.
You claimed that no one was calling for more gun violence. I have provided examples where people have called for teachers to be armed, and others have explicitly talked about said teachers being able to stop a shooter - not deter. Your attempt to not admit you were wrong was to try to quibble over carrying/owning and you've compounded it with arguing that deterrence isn't violence.
It doesn't matter. People have called for teachers to be armed to be able to stop, not deter, potential shooters. Not carry. Not own. Not deter.
You were wrong. Can you admit that?
neither built up, nor tore down, any argument there, ergo not a straw man. I was making a point; one which you, in your previous paragraph, claimed to agree with, but apparently completely missed.
I was careful to express the part I agreed with, then highlighted a sentence from the paragraph where you expressed
You can probably assume the gun isn't what's making 1/4 of criminals choose to harm or 73% of killers choose to kill
Why would I need or want to make this assumption unless it is to answer the implied question. Which is a straw man.
I tallied up the numbers in the statistics provided. If I didn't list a number for the category, there was no number provided by the FBI's statistics for that category. Blame the source, not my math
[X] is a total that includes totals from [a,b,c and d]. You've summed [a], [b] and [c] and consider the lack of [d] or being able to show that [a,b,c and d] are the only elements is a problem with the source and that you can use the numbers the way you have? I repeat my claim. Your math is bad.
There's really only one way to study it and, well, if I'm right I sure don't want that study conducted. In short, I'd love to be proven wrong, but the chance of being proven right makes me really not want to see that study done. If you follow what I'm saying
No. You could look at places where guns have been removed or restricted and looking at the stats for violent crime. In Australia, for eg, there was a brief spike immediately following the buy-back/ban and then a steady decline. It's not conclusive as there are known to be confounding factors, but if you were to take similar statistics from other cases you may be able to back your claim. Your inability to provide proof of your assertion doesn't make your assertion any more true. If you know what I'm saying.
WRT scaremongering.
You claimed an increase in gun crime will occur when/if guns are criminalised. It may seem simple to you; it may seem obvious. It's not. It's an assertion you haven't backed up with anything like evidence. For eg, show somewhere where guns were made illegal and where the use of guns by criminals increased. I've no idea what you think showing that most criminals use illegal guns shows. You need to show that removing guns from legal owners will _increase_ gun use by criminals. That was your assertion and I'm calling it scaremongering. And until you can show an argument or evidence and not simply your assertion, then that's all it is.
Removing the pool of available weapons reduces the pool of weapons available illegally.
Nothing you say about how hard that might be to implement contradicts this
There is no argument to be had
Clearly.
but you go on and believe whatever you want
Thank you for your condescension.
Just stop.
The original poster said that in Australia it's nearly impossible to get an AK or AR so you can't mow down 50 people. The implication is that this is possible in the US. A weaker implication is that it has happened. It's clearly an exaggeration.
But even if they stated it plainly, it still doesn't make your argument any more correct.
You were wrong. You misread or attacked a straw man, drew conclusions from skimming or not understanding the law and provided links that were inaccurate or didn't support the argument you were making.
Then you wander off talking about bolt action fire rates. I assume you mean this to be an argument that because a bolt action rifle is more readily available in Australia that it would be possible to have a shooting like the Pulse shooting. That still doesn't contradict anything the original poster said.
Please stop. You're wrong and just digging deeper.
Firearms are heavily restricted in Australia. Even bolt action rifles. It's almost impossible to obtain a semi-auto rifle. Your link to a website where you can order one with a letter from the AG doesn't disprove that. Your link to the wiki on Australian firearm law confirms what the original poster said, not what you said.
Your joke aside, owning a gun is not a violent act. Neither is carrying one
No, but I assume the purpose of arming teachers is not so that they can simply own nor just carry a gun. The implication is that in the face of a potential shooter, that teachers would use their guns to defend themselves and their students. This is violence.
Please don't be this disingenuous.
Nobody's proposing ending gun violence with more gun violence. Care to try again?
Call to arm teachers. It got political. You may have heard about it. I think that Trump guy mentioned it.
(not from the US; think both Democrats and Republicans are politicians and therefore lying weasels without the charm; trying for a little levity; pleasepleaseplease can this not get political?)
I haven't heard a single person advocate for more guns, that's just a strawman your kind put up
Take a deep breath.
Some people are characterising the call for arming teachers or increasing police on campus/schools or hiring more security guards as adding more guns. It's cheap rhetoric, but it only works because on some level it's true.
While we can still technically buy automatic weapons, they are heavily regulated, must be registered, ... due to their relative rarity, sell for $10k or more. Nobody uses their $10k gun that's registered with the federal government to mow down 50 people.
and
Have you even looked at the guns available in Australia [gunworld.com.au]?
Yeah. They are heavily regulated, must be registered, are relatively rare and consequently cost more than $10k and no-one uses them to mow down 50 people.
Without a pool of legal weapons to steal from, most criminals using guns are using single/low-capacity shotguns and older handguns.
The GP said it's 'pretty well impossible'. You even quote them. .308 you identify as a semi-auto. It's a bolt action. You'll look less like a tool if your examples show what you think they show.
Then you find a link to where you can buy semi automatic rifles. That aren't in stock. And will only be ordered for you when you provide a letter from the Attorney General. Also, you link to a
You're arguing 'impossible'. That's not what the GP said.
Perhaps you should learn your own country's gun laws [wikipedia.org] before judging mine?
Have you? Because nothing in there disproves the GP.
Wouldn't you rather save more lives by addressing the underlying issues which are causing people to want to kill each other in the first place?
Yes. Agreed 100%. Guns and their availability may be a confounding factor, a force multiplier may or may not exacerbate an existing situation, but banning them without addressing the fundamental problems that give rise to violent crime is unlikely to be effective, let alone workable. At best it's damage mitigation (if you can get it to work), at worse it's sop that draws effort away from change that might actually do something.
You can probably assume the gun isn't what's making 1/4 of criminals choose to harm or 73% of killers choose to kill
Straw man. No-one is saying guns make people kill. The closest arguments are that they make it easier to kill, and so may make someone intent on harm _choose_ to escalate because it's easy and/or that they change what would have been an injury (with another weapon, or none) into a fatality.
That's 327,056 violent crimes involving guns, out of 1,248,185,
Bad math.
- The total for violent crime that you report "include the offenses of murder, rape (legacy definition), robbery, and aggravated assault" (emphasis mine). You then list totals for homicide, robbery and assault. You omit rape and any other crimes included in the original that are not covered by those categories (I don't know if any exist, but as the statement uses 'include' and not, for example 'comprises' I don't think you can assume).
- You further state that it is only in the category of homicide that someone died. Is that the case? If someone is dies during a robbery, is that counted as homicide (not from the US and couldn't see a definition from your links).
- You claim that each defensive killing would be another person killed had they not killed in turn. You assume 100% death in whatever they were defending against. Even if every defensive shooting that resulted in a killing were against an intention to kill, from your own figures not all attempts succeed.
Your premise may be correct, but this is sloppy. Crime happens. Violent crime happens. People are killed by violent crime - sometimes deliberately. You contend that removing guns would have little effect on the numbers killed. I agree with your assertion, earlier, that focussing on the cause of violent crime is more useful and more likely to succeed than concentrating on guns alone, but I don't think your (use of) figures support your contention that guns do not have much of an impact on people killed in and by violent crime.
You go on to assume that crime is static and without easy access to a firearm (this may be true, but you simply assert it) violent crime would use another weapon.
With respect to the argument 'when it's a crime to own a gun, only criminals will own one' - this is scaremongering. It would be extraordinarily difficult to remove guns from the US. It would take a lot of effort, involve years (possibly generations) and would have a host of serious consequences, but claiming that crime would increase is an unproven assertion. In countries where it is mostly only criminals that have guns, they are mostly used among and on criminals. When you don't _need_ a gun to rob a store why make it easy for the police to identify you as a criminal when you can get away with a knife or bat? As you say, a host of violent criminals do just fine with these already.
Removing the pool of available weapons reduces the pool of weapons available illegally. No, the criminals who already have one probably won't give it up, but over time those that are held by criminals will be lost, destroyed and seized. In time there will be fewer guns to steal from legal owners and fewer in the hands of criminals. Maybe the influx of smuggled and illegally manufactured guns will meet or exceed the rate that they are removed. Maybe not. Different argument.
Whether that's feasible or the best use of resources is another matter, but I disagree with the conclusions you draw.
I'm tired of hearing "if you don't like it, don't use Facebook/android/twitter/etc"
Then perhaps you should stop making the same argument to which this is the answer.
Just because first amendment says you can't go to jail for speech does not mean private companies are allowed to censor indiscriminately
Actually, that's precisely what it means. There's no constitutional protection for forcing someone to support your speech. You can say what you like but can't compel someone to assist you. Get a soap box, go stand on a corner. Knock yourself out.
If I sent a racist text to my friend, should google be allowed to censor it or delete it?
Yes. You ask this as though the answer is obvious. This might be why you keep having the problem you describe in your first sentence.
Should Verizon be allowed to read my text and kick me off Verizon?
No. Common carrier.
Should Facebook remove private messages that "incite violence"?
Slightly different to the Google question - you ask 'should' not 'should they be allowed'. Facebook should be allowed to do what they like to your statement.
You seem to think that Google, Facebook (and perhaps, by implication, Youtube) should be treated as utilities and regulated as such. It's an interesting position. Would you like to expand on it, or are you just going to continue to argue as though it were obvious?
apparent intent to mass murder
You've selectively quoted just 'mass murder', the GP is careful to note that this appeared to be an intention to mass murder (and the FBI define same as four or more murders without 'cooling off'). The GP is accurate and correct.
This is about morality, and morally YouTube should not have suddenly turned off many users income
You've an odd sense of entitlement, and a strange idea about income.
Youtube no longer wishes to pay for certain types of content. The market changed. No other industry works the way you seem to think this should
Essentially she was fired without cause and without notice.
No, she was not. Nothing in the arrangement between her and Youtube could be or should have been seen as an employer/employee. At best it's a seller/buyer and without some kind of agreement or guarantee then expecting a buyer to continue to buy your product is naive. Shooting them is a sign of a deeply disturbed mind and your support of her position is disturbing.
YouTube needs to realize we're not sheep
Ah, you're a content creator who has been affected by Youtube's decision. I am sorry. Genuinely. I think that the observation that multinational corporations have little care or concern for the people that are affected by their decisions is accurate. What I cannot understand is why you have or had anything to do with them.
that if you poke a dog with a stick long enough eventually it will bite back and while the dog will be blamed for biting it had a good reason.
Then I sincerely hope that what you've learned is that when a large corporation provides you with a free service and offers to pay a portion of the revenue they generate from your content with no contract or guarantee that expecting that to continue is foolish.
I expect that you've taken your valuable content and found alternative methods of 'monetising' it - Patreon or similar, perhaps. Maybe hosting it yourself and asking for donations. Perhaps selling directly to a buyer.
and while the dog will be blamed for biting it had a good reason.
Turn it around. You/she took money from a corporation and they didn't care about you. What exactly were you expecting?
YouTube took away this woman's income
She certainly seemed to believe this to be the case.
She produced a product which she sold to a single buyer. The buyer stopped purchasing her product. There was no contract, real or implied between them - except the usage agreement which specified that this could happen at any time. In no other situation would the buyer be described as 'taking away her income' or be considered to have any obligation to the seller.
In other industries, the seller would be expected to find another buyer or change what is being produced to match the needs of the market. The problem that I see is that the people complaining about Youtube's new policy aren't complaining about Youtube not paying for content, they are complaining that Youtube doesn't want to pay for the content they produce. It happens. Especially when what you are selling is often faddish, niche and superficial. If the content had real value, there would be other buyers. It seems more as though the people complaining have grown accustomed to being paid for being minor celebrities and when their 10 minutes of 'fame' have passed can't reconcile that.
If a thief stole your wallet
Loaded language. Youtube is not a thief. The income she may derive from the sale of her products is not the same as the money she owns. She still has her products. No-one has taken away anything except that they have declined to buy them. FFS, her videos were still being hosted. For free.
I know amateur, semi-professional and professional film makers. They produce work for their own pleasure, for art and for market - and the material they produce for market is made to appeal to the market they are attempting to sell to and whether it sells or not, whether the market changes or not, none of them think that the buyer owes them an income.
I am sorry that this woman reached the point where this was the only solution she thought she had. I am saddened that others have been hurt - those directly injured and their families and her friends and family. However, blaming Youtube is very much victim blaming.
Did you read that graph?
There are only 4 states with a lower murder rate than England and Wales, and only 10 with a lower rate than Scotland. The UK, as a whole, has a lower murder rate than the US as a whole.
So yes, the UK is safer than anywhere except a few mostly rural states in the US
For the record, I don't think a ban on guns is going to be as effective in the US as in other places (like Australia) for cultural reasons, even if it could be enacted effectively. There are a number of criticisms that can be made of the fairly superficial comparison of murder rates between countries, but your rebuttal isn't among them.
The republic is broken
Given that it started as a plutocracy and only in relatively modern times moved away from that, I'd argue that either it was always broken or it's working as intended.
The vast majority of the population have absolutely no true self-interest
Yeah. They should be interested in what _you_ think they should be interested in. I don't care if you think they are idiots, deciding that their interests are not 'true' is the sort of rhetoric that usually has decisions being made for people's 'own good'.
The self-aware minority that value liberty are being attacked on every front
Here and elsewhere you have the same 'member of a small, persecuted elite' self-identification going on. Anyone who disagrees simply fails to comprehend, because the truth is just so obvious.
Narcissist or nut of another flavour - your posts aren't pretty.
The only thing that makes sense is revolution
No. No it really does not make sense. Look, I think the US has significant problems and even so, it's still a better place to live than a lot of other places. Not the best, and not as good as some think, but better than some of its critics claim. Change that, by all means. Work on real equality. Call the corporations to heel. Reign in and dismantle the MI complex. But blood-in-the-streets revolution? FFS read some history.
as to your signature; if this is the quality of your posts, then your karma loss is entirely the result of people not liking you blood thirsty, elitist condescension.
You started off ok with the whole "corporations by definition can't restrict your freedoms"
Not wanting to be pedantic, but I'm arguing, specifically that the refusal to provide you with a service is not a restriction of your rights. It might restrict your freedom. A corporation can also, certainly, restrict freedoms and violate rights - look at the tobacco industry threatening people into silence for a literal violation of the right to free speech. Youtube restricting your videos may limit your freedom, but is not a violation or restriction of your rights.
kind of went off the rails there with 'rights being fluid & just cultural norms'
May I suggest that you take a look at the distinction between natural and legal rights? There have even been people who have argued that natural rights don't exist; that all rights are legal rights (I tend to that opinion, but admit to be little more than an interested amateur). Calling the position 'off the rails' is a little harsh.
If or when 'society' once again recognizes that fundamental rights are exactly what the Bill of Rights says they are can 'responsibilities' be expected from individuals.
I'm genuinely interested - which rights from your Bill of Rights do you think have been violated, restricted or otherwise limited?
With respect to granting rights to corporations, there's some interesting argument about whether only individuals can have rights, or whether groups can have rights (families? religions? minority groups? corporations). I tend to side on the 'only individuals can have rights', but I'm on even less knowledgeable ground here.
To your examples;
'Corporation = people'. The debate over what rights that are held by natural persons can be applied to a corporation is over a century old. Can a corporation enter into a contract with a person? Should they be taxed? Should the rights of the members of a corporation cease to exist when they act as a corporation, and if not, how are they applied while still allowing limited liability? It's complex and I certainly don't like what I see as a betrayal of the social contract with corporations. Corporations (esp. limited liability corporations) allow individuals to pool resources while limiting the risk in the case of the failure of the business. This is clearly to promote investment and to make easier (even possible) businesses that couldn't exist without such support, but to the extent that this was allowed for the betterment of society, those rights and protections come with responsibilities that I see as being increasingly ignored. But that's not really about corporations violating my rights.
'RICO laws are used to confiscate property'. A clear perversion of justice and a violation of rights to do with property and ownership. I agree, totally. I don't care for the argument that it was necessary to go after organised crime. Violation of the rights of criminals is still a violation of rights.
'Privacy rights and abortions'. I'm not sure I understand what you are arguing. You claim that rights to privacy don't exist. I'd argue that they do, it's just that they have never been defined - partly because there has never been this degree of ubiquitous surveillance. We can see that people have a belief that they have some kind of right to privacy, it's just that the laws are struggling to 'catch up'. Can Facebook use the date it collected and sell it to CA? People are outraged, but the EUALA makes it legal - just not ethical. So, I suspect, laws will be made to patch up this violation of public trust, just as similar laws have been enacted to guard medical records, tax records, information held by the government ...
I see the growing body of law around privacy as an attempt to codify cultural and social values that will eventually accumulate into a definition of a fundamental right. This is the proce
I agree. The ubiquity of things like the internet and the major players on it make them similar to things like the rise of the telephone, electricity, water etc.
I'd argue that services like Facebook should probably be regulated like other utilities.
None of this has anything to do with rights or the abrogation of those. These are arguments of utility, of social contract, of standards of living.
This is not new, it's just the current version of the same process that saw the breakup of Ma Bell, saw the regulations of power and water that now exists etc.
By all means argue that we need to have these companies be accountable to their communities and society. Let's talk about the cost and value of regulating these services in a similar way to other communication. But I maintain that the GP is confusing privilege for right.
Laws follow culture.
Acknowledged and extended.
Laws are starting to be censorious as in the case of the UK and EU.
You claim. The right to free speech has long been held to be subject to limitations with respect to the harm it may cause to others - libel, slander, sedition, misinformation in advertising or false claims etc. The restrictions on speech in the UK and EU have always been greater than in the US, that trend continues and in the form it always has - justified by a claim of harm to others.
There is a large culture and a lot of institutions that advocates for censorship.
'Censorship' is a bait word. You've not defined it and my attempt to ask you to actually state your position resulted in a claim that I failed to comprehend your meaning. You seem to be trying to imply that _any_ limitation on speech is censorship. Maybe you believe that to be true, but pretty much every society and government has recognised that there need to be limits on individual rights where exercising that right harms others, including speech.
People will retaliate to censors, even if it is not the government because Rights do not come from government.
While you may well have a right to express yourself, you have no right to demand that I or any other person assist you in that. Private companies can restrict what you use their services for without ever coming near your 'rights'.
You seem to arguing for the existence of natural rights. Fair enough, better thinkers than either of us have argued the same although I tend towards the other direction, but in either case Youtube restricting content is not a violation of your rights. If you want to link that to the restrictions on speech in the UK, please offer more than a hand wave or assertion. Your claim that I've failed to comprehend you is poor excuse.
To have a civil war you need two clearly defined sides. The United States is not even close to that kind of situation.
The incarceration rate in the US has been compared to states that are in the midst of civil war. Nothing else comes close. Given the inequity in sentencing based on race and you have a situation where a 'side' is being defined by default. Throw in a media that's all-but unregulated and loves to fan the flames and you have the ingredients for a fairly ugly division on class and racial lines. It won't be the 'clean' civil war of competing ideologies; it will be the 'dirty' kind of unrest and spontaneous outbreaks of violence of the oppressed.
Do YOU have an ideology that is going to lead our country to freedom, prosperity, and happiness? Well put it forward!
Not from the US and any change needs to grow internally, not be imposed externally - something that the US might want to consider with regards its foreign policy - but you might want to try moderating the demonisation of social policies. If you could shrink the income inequality, provide some kind of safety net for those at the bottom of society you'd remove some of the desperation and the 'nothing to lose' factor. If there's some way to make true-er the claim that the US is somewhere where hard work will get you somewhere and improve social mobility, then you'd get more buy in for the other values you espouse.
The thing is, there can't be change until the problems are acknowledged and I'm not sure that this has happened, yet.
basic human right like free speech
You've introduced that all on your own. I was countering the GPs rhetorical statement that violence/shootings was the only response to corporatism. They were arguing for revolution, I was making a case for evolution. I am arguing that looking for quick fixes, especially violent 'fixes' are unlikely to work on problems that have taken a long time to reach the point they have.
But to your point;
culture of censorship (youtube, twitter, facebook, any social media)
All of these are private organisations, not governments. Usually, censorship and free-speech arguments revolve around governments limiting speech. If I am in a friend's home and start criticising their choice in interior decoration, there's nothing to stop the friend asking me to leave - nor would this be considered censorship. If you don't like the rules that these social media services ask you to abide by, don't use them. If you've built a business, identity or way of life on or around a service over which you have no control and provided by someone with whom you have no contract then claiming you have some kind of 'right' is stretching the use of that term to something that it doesn't usually mean.
when that freedom is restricted people will strike back
What freedom do you see being restricted by Facebook, Youtube, Twitter etc.? How is that different from any company refusing to offer or to continue to offer a service if you refuse to abide by the terms of that service? Do you consider that these companies have some kind of obligation to provide you with a service on your terms? Do you equate being arrested for saying certain things with having your video rankings on Youtube lowered for saying those things and if so, why?
Laws follow culture
So do 'rights'. They are not universal. They are a kind of cultural axiom. 'We believe these truths to be self-evident ...' They cannot be argued because they are the foundation upon which arguments rest. But they can and do change.
Rights do not exist in a vacuum. Rights only exist when others agree to or with them. I see a lot of arguments about rights - demands for rights that have been infringed or abrogated, but very little about responsibilities. Demands for rights are very self-focussed. Responsibility tends to be about commitment to the community, society and culture in which you live. I see corporations as examples of rights over responsibilities - the right to profit without concern over the cost to community.
Until people stop demanding their rights and start working on their responsibilities, I'm not sure that the culture that has allowed these corporations to be successful is going to change. The US has some of the worst poverty; the greatest income inequality; the highest rate of incarceration with, at the same time, some of the worst racial imbalance in sentencing; worst healthcare outcomes of any other western country and in some statistics, are worse than traditionally totalitarian regimes and some third world countries. These have more to do with the violence you see and the talk of civil war than whether Youtube has stopped ranking your stream as highly as they did.