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what free speech means in the context of a somewhat anonymous internet? (sh.itjust.works)

submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by drascus@sh.itjust.works to c/main@sh.itjust.works

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My current view is that while I want to promote openness and free speech that can really only work in a context where the person exercising their speech feels some necessity to use it responsibly and in an honest way.

On the internet that takes a lot of self control because the social norms of every day life don’t always apply because:

no one knows who you are
there is not a human being right in front of you that you might feel empathy for
there are no consequences to anything you say
not all posts are even by humans.

With all these taken together there is a compelling argument that speech may need to be more highly regulated on the internet than in face to face interactions. However there are people with legitimate ( beliefs and ideas honestly held that they wish to discuss ) views that I worry are going to be silenced and further marginalized.

This is bad for society because if people get dismissed or pushed aside it just breeds resentment, distrust, and more misunderstanding. I think as we start defederating and making decisions we are setting up a dangerous situation where it becomes potentially easy to defederate for the wrong reasons.

For instance "we think they are being racist" or "they are spreading misinformation" could have unintended consequences. Some religions and communities might have beliefs that appear to be pseudoscience or even discrimination. However if these are honestly held beliefs that they are willing to engage in civil discourse around I don't think it's right to actually block them.

This is likely just the beginning of a much larger discussion so what are your thoughts?---

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[–] epicspongee@midwest.social 29 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I think as we start defederating and making decisions we are setting up a dangerous situation where it becomes potentially easy to defederate for the wrong reasons.

Mastodon has operated this way for years and it's worked out really well. They're currently at 12 million or 13 million users right now. Read my comment I wrote on it here. Basically all the Nazis flee to the Nazi servers because they can't follow or subscribe to their fellow Nazis or talk about Nazi stuff. So they leave. This makes it safer for users and easier for mods to keep their users safe.

And like... sure, there's drama. People defederate for dumb reasons. But Mastodon accounts are portable and you can hop around from server to server easily. And 99% of the time people don't defederate for no reason.

Some religions and communities might have beliefs that appear to be pseudoscience or even discrimination.

This is often because they are. My old fundamentalist Christian cult I grew up in was incredibly homophobic. They 'looked' like they had beliefs that were discriminatory because they were. You do not get a 'be a bigot free' card because your religion says you are one. You can change your shitty religion (conservative fundamentalist religions have done so tons of times in the past). Minorities cannot change who they are. There are tons of other religious communities that do not discriminate against minorities so that standard is not unreasonable.

[–] PeachyMcPeachface@sh.itjust.works 13 points 1 year ago

Based take. Just to add to this, despite the Mormon heads of church trying to undo MANY years of super problematic viewpoints, many members still believe that Black people are cursed by God and are inherently evil for something that happened thousands of years ago. It's extremely prevalent, especially in Utah

[–] Fizz@lemmy.nz 14 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The problem is that people are sick of having the same arguments over and over. I'm going to use trans people as a example. They don't want to see people denying their existence or calling them mentally ill every day.

In my opinion free speech is very important part of the internet and its 100% been lost. Places like 4chan are good because you know it's going to be a cesspit so if you go there and complain about what you see then you're the fool.

However with lemmy we have the expectation of civil dialog that doesn't offend. So if someone saw something that was offensive they have the right to complain as to why thay speech is allowed here.

[–] catharticrespite@sh.itjust.works 18 points 1 year ago (1 children)

4chan is a great example of what places that consider free speech an indelible right will turn into

People who have the most vile and hostile opinions will flock there and push most of the reasonable people out

Talking to a band of brainwashed idiots who hide their hate behind a thin veneer pseudointellectualism gets old pretty fast and, as /pol/ likes to point out, those opinions color their view of reality and will seep into discussions of seemingly unrelated topics

Most of us don't want to have to deconstruct some non-sensical ideology every time we make a statement. They think this means their opinions are some hidden truth that we can't handle.

The reality is that we can prove them wrong, but they can't or won't accept it so we give up on them and go where there are more reasonable people to interact with

[–] Fizz@lemmy.nz 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I like 4chan but I don't try and argue I sit by and laugh at the chaos and amazing logic jumps.

[–] catharticrespite@sh.itjust.works 4 points 1 year ago

Yeah, that's the way to do it.

There's a lot that's pretty funny, but their narratives about being the last bastion of freedom and enlightenment always rubbed me the wrong way

Kind of like how subbreddits and circlejerks often go hand in hand. Or how people here like to talk about how it's soooooo much better than reddit to the point that, no matter how you sort it, the front page is buried in posts saying the same thing

[–] Kecessa@sh.itjust.works 13 points 1 year ago (2 children)

My opinion is that we live in a world that's more and more divided and that stems from extremists being given platforms to easily spread their message and pull people in. Extremist terrorism is on the rise and people (especially social conservatives) are frequently seen assembling in huge numbers to protest, something that hadn't happened in decades (not in the number of times or the number of people anyway) in most of the the western world.

It's better to allow them to exist in their corner with little interaction with the rest of the world like they used to during the 80s to early 00s than to give them a platform to find gullible people in search for easy answers to recruit.

However there are people with legitimate ( beliefs and ideas honestly held that they wish to discuss ) views that I worry are going to be silenced and further marginalized.

The vast majority of them don't wish to discuss because their beliefs aren't built upon rational foundations. If proven wrong with facts they use irrational arguments to defend their point of view. If experts intentionally don't argue with them then what are we doing arguing with them as laymen? Heck, arguing with them just gives them more space to share their message and convince people.

[–] Shihali@sh.itjust.works 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I worry that this "banish them to the corner" policy will combine with rapidly changing limits on acceptable speech and thought to hand the extremists a growing captive audience of resentful exiles. Is it really worth banishing Jane Churchlady if the price is making Gab a mainstream social network?

[–] Kecessa@sh.itjust.works 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

Much easier to "capture" an audience if you're given a platform to speak to said audience.

I've mentioned this example before so pardon me if you've read it already. We had a far right party getting covered by medias in Canada during last federal election because our laws made it an obligation to give them coverage. They didn't win a single seat and media don't have to give them any attention anymore. The leader went from doing live sessions with thousands of watchers and tweets getting thousands of likes to getting a couple hundreds of each with numbers constantly going down.

Stop giving extremists a public and only the small percentage that's truly extreme will keep supporting the movement, give them a public and you'll have people that are on the fence that will fall on their side.

Heck, the USA had the KKK in the streets decades ago, that didn't go away by trying to compromise with them! But now that people who hold the same beliefs have a platform (Facebook, Twitter, Gab...) they're back in the streets, just not dressed with a white hood!

[–] ArcaneSlime@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Actually, it is legal to be in the kkk, or organize as the kkk, assemble and spread those ideals. It is not legal for them to commit crimes like arson (cross burning) or murder (lynching), or conspiring to do those crimes, but simply existing, calling yourselves the kkk, wearing hoods, and saying racist shit is legal.

In fact:

that didn't go away by trying to compromise with them!

Actually, it kinda did. More accurately, it "went away" by convincing their potential converts (mostly their kids) that those old fashioned ideals are stupid and untrue, it was actually exactly through conversation and exposure to other cultures and their arts that the kkk saw their numbers dwindle to their meager membership levels of today.

I'm not saying we need to follow that playbook, just because it worked once doesn't mean it will again I suppose, but it was through discussion that their membership suffered, not through "bans" (or in this context making being in the kkk illegal. Since it isn't illegal, they can't have done that.)

[–] Kecessa@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Actually, it kinda did. More accurately, it “went away” by convincing their potential converts (mostly their kids) that those old fashioned ideals are stupid and untrue, it was actually exactly through conversation and exposure to other cultures and their arts that the kkk saw their numbers dwindle to their meager membership levels of today.

You should revise your history of the Klan because I don't think infiltration by the FBI and being surrounded by armed first Nations and exchanging gunfire with them is considered "conversation and exposure to other cultures".

[–] ArcaneSlime@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

I believe that part is what one would consider "crime."

It is still, currently, not illegal to be in the kkk or be a racist POS no matter what either of us think about that. It still exists actually, remember 2016? David Duke, the leader of the thing, who is a real person who's name and location is known, has not been arrested for being the leader of the thing, supported trump on the news? They do get arrested for crimes they commit all the time of course, since they often do commit crimes, but putting on a hood and saying stupid shit is simply not one of them.

There have actually been three separate KKKs btw. The first one was actually made illegal, but that was declared unconstitutional in the 1880s. Making it illegal actually isn't what killed it either, it continued on even as people got locked up, the leader disbanded it because it was becoming generalized violence and he "only" wanted racist violence, he basically said "look how they massacred my boy" and pulled the plug. And then the supreme court case said it was unconstitutional.

The second one in the 20s had somehow convinced it's members they were upstanding members of society, until their leader got convicted of rape and murder, and all the protestants they had recruited said "are we the baddies?" So they splintered and declined for years, until the organization literally got sold, and the IRS hit them with a lein for back taxes, and they shuttered their doors like a failed company.

Then from there they tried to immediatly start a new one a few years later from what was left, but it was outed in superman comics and books, more splintering and low membership as a result, the civil rights movement won, more splintering and low membership, and now we're at today, where historians attribute the decline to the Klan's lack of competence in the use of the Internet, their history of violence, a proliferation of competing hate groups, and a decline in the number of young racist activists who are willing to join groups at all.

Again, though the klan has been in decline steadily since like 1945, it is still legal, so "making it illegal" clearly isn't what caused the decline. The decline was caused by Superman..

..Or you know, that stuff I said earlier about exposure to other people, culture, and art making them not want to be racist against those people. Don't minimize the role desegregation and the civil rights movement played in all of that, it wasn't just the FBI (who killed MLK btw) prosecuting the criminals in the kkk, it was people of different races playing together on the playground, eating lunch together in the cafeteria, and becoming the next generation of kkk "recruits" that wanted fuck all to do with them since they already knew how dumb it was due to those experiences. Literally, people like MLK "won," unless you count "winning" complete destruction, but I'd count 3,000 total members (down from 4-6 million peak) out of 334,967,580 total US population low enough to call a win, personally, and again that isn't because the FBI made the klan "illegal."

[–] Kecessa@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I never said it was made illegal though l, I said measures were taken against them... Just like defederating or banning users from one instance doesn't put them in an "internet prison" and doesn't impose a rule at the "federal level", they can still share their opinions elsewhere and we let them do so, we just tell them they're not welcome in our town if that's the kind of message they want to share.

[–] ArcaneSlime@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

You implied that their decline was due to one incident in 1958 and the prowess of the FBI, at least, and I disagree. I, like the historians, attribute it to the KKK's failings and the Civil Rights movement's winnings.

You were replying to (and "correcting me" on) a post claiming that "the kkk isn't ilegal, but commiting crimes dressed as one or otherwise is illegal" so I figured you disagreed since you argued against it, my mistake, I guess your "correction" was misplaced.

[–] Kecessa@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Do you really need me to list all event of repression towards the KKK or you're able to understand what an example is? 🤔

[–] ArcaneSlime@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 1 year ago

Ok pal.

[–] Shihali@sh.itjust.works 3 points 1 year ago (3 children)

I think we might be arguing two slightly different things here. You're worried about the consequences of not shunning extremists hard enough to keep groups that are already down, down. I'm worried about the consequences of shunning people who are neither bien-pensants nor extremists as extremists, because it's a strong incentive for the mal-pensants to support the extremists if not become extremists.

Also, your argument turns on the assumption that the extremists are incapable of making their own platforms and must rely on platforms offered by others. My argument is that if you deplatform anyone within eyesight of an extremist, it's a matter of time before you've deplatformed so many people that they build their own successful platform. And the platform of the deplatformed will be ugly.

[–] bren42069@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

not to mention that as times change, you may eventually find yourself deplatformed as well

[–] Kecessa@sh.itjust.works 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Yeah, by extremists, which is more a badge of honor than anything else when you're close to center.

No way your argument to tolerate racists, homophobes and misogynes is "someday people who have opposite values might be deplatformed!"

[–] Feweroptions@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 year ago

Yeah, it's called Gab

[–] Kecessa@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

"because it’s a strong incentive for the mal-pensants to support the extremists if not become extremists"

If it was the case we would have seen the alt right movement die instead of resuscitating when social medias became mainstream as they got more exposition to "average people" that were contradicting them more than ever before.

They can create their own platform, it doesn't mean we need to tolerate them everywhere. They need contact with people outside their circles to make their numbers increase though.

You're scared that it's a slippery slope that will lead to deplatforming people with not so extreme opinions but you're not scared that exposing these people to more extreme opinions will radicalize them...

Anyway, if you hang around racists or homophobes or genocide deniers, you don't contradict them and you fight for their "right" to share their bigoted opinions then what does that make you? 🤔

[–] Shihali@sh.itjust.works 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

You deeply misunderstood my argument and threw in gratuitous insults. So I'll try to explain it again with a character.

Jane Churchlady is a social conservative. She believes that God disapproves of homosexuality. She thinks same-sex marriage shouldn't have been made legal, and she says so. She votes for the local right-wing party, but she can't bring herself to vote for the racist far right party. Jane Churchlady will not change her belief that God disapproves of homosexuality, and isn't willing to lie about it to stay on a social network.

What do you do when Jane Churchlady registers for Lemmy?

If you let Jane Churchlady stay, she says that while she prays for gay people, they are sinful in the eyes of God.
If you ban Jane Churchlady, she's out of your feed, but she registers for Gab instead and starts voting for the racist far right party after reading the posts there. Because you tried to deplatform her, she has been radicalized. If you hadn't tried to deplatform her, she wouldn't have switched to Gab and wouldn't have been radicalized.
If you've got a third scenario, tell me what happens to Jane Churchlady.

[–] Kecessa@sh.itjust.works 0 points 1 year ago (2 children)

You already answered your own question...

Jane Churchlady will not change her belief that God disapproves of homosexuality, and isn’t willing to lie about it to stay on a social network.

Then her opinion isn't built on rationality and it's useless to try and convince her she's wrong, there's no reason to tolerate her on an instance where "no bigotry" (or something similar) is a rule. The good news is that other instances will welcome her if she absolutely wants to join Lemmy... It's still much harder to find these instances or other alt-right social medias than to find platforms that are actually moderated. Why? Because the vast majority of people still don't want to discuss with people from either extremes (tankies or alt-right). So in the end chances are she'll just give up and stop taking part in discussions about gay rights.

Sure, some fall down the deep end, but you're still ignoring the fact that it's much easier to recruit people if your recruitment campaigns are tolerated than it is if you're trying to do it by JAQing, hiding messages, contacting people one by one or other similar tactics used to make people fall down a rabbit hole.

You're scared for Jane and you want to protect her by exposing thousands more to the message instead of making it hard to find the people who want to share the message... That makes very little sense to me 🤷

But the way, if you felt insulted it might be because the hat fits, my last paragraph was purely rhetorical.

[–] Shihali@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

If you've already concluded that Jane Churchlady, a figure I constructed to be a social conservative who isn't an extremist, is in reality an extremist then we've been talking past each other for quite a while.

So you're very worried that if Christian bien-pensants are exposed to Jane Churchlady saying that gay marriage is against the will of God and she's praying for gay couples, several of them will think she has a point and drift rightward, and preventing that is worth driving Jane Churchlady herself into extremism? I'd discounted the possibility that Jane Churchlady would convert anyone rather than be a nuisance. I can follow your logic now, although your conclusion that building a fence around bien-pensants is worth outright handing a 10-20% market share to extremists is a hard pill to swallow.

But the way, if you felt insulted it might be because the hat fits, my last paragraph was purely rhetorical.

Your answer to being called out making a backhanded accusation is to make another backhanded accusation?

[–] Kecessa@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It's funny because you're ignoring the part where I covered all of that and instead are constructing a fake answer... So the hat truly does fit...

[–] Shihali@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

You've quit discussing in good faith and gone all-in on slinging insults, so it's time to end this thread.

[–] Kecessa@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 year ago

Because you were? 🤔

[–] Feweroptions@sh.itjust.works 0 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

Ah yes, the good old "if I insinuate or say something awful about you and it offends you, it's because you're guilty."

Fuck off.

[–] Kecessa@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 year ago

Anyway, if you hang around racists or homophobes or genocide deniers, you don’t contradict them and you fight for their “right” to share their bigoted opinions then what does that make you? 🤔

I'm not talking about OP, I'm talking about the "not so extremists" that they mentioned in their post. If these people decide to join those getting deplatformed instead of questioning why they got deplatformed then maybe it's because they're closeted racists or homophobes or genocide deniers. If OP felt insulted by that then it's their problem and yes it might be because they feel concerned because they would rather join those getting deplatformed than question why spreading shit in everyone's plate shouldn't be tolerated.

[–] Early_To_Risa@sh.itjust.works 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I'd argue that we're not more divided because of extremists being given platforms, but rather the opposite:

Because we build comfortable echochambers for ourselves (by algorithmically, or manually, cutting off contrary opinions) that succumb to groupthink, which by nature develop to be more and more extreme. The same is true for the "others" that get sent to their corner of the internet because they're wrong and not welcome.

[–] Kecessa@sh.itjust.works 4 points 1 year ago

Social media algorithm push extreme opinions because they generate more clicks and involvement from users, they also divide people a lot more because generating a debate about "gender vs sex" is much more controversial than if government subsidies for farmers are ok if it's too generate corn that's used to produce fuel.

[–] mrpants@midwest.social 10 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Are there also unintended consequences of letting in people who are being openly and unabashedly racist?

[–] Djeece@sh.itjust.works 14 points 1 year ago

It gives an air of legitimacy to those thoughts.

Those people are LOUD but they aren't nearly as numerous as we, or they, think.

Most people, by and large, just want to do their little thing and want to be nice to others, and want others to be nice to them. Most people don't care that their neighbors are a black gay couple, as long as they're nice.

When we let 10 people who post a 100 racist memes a day drown out the 100 regular people who post 10 times a day gives everyone the impression there is more racism than there really is, which breeds more racism, and drives out regular people who don't want to be on a racist platform.

(Using racism here as a stand-in for whatever form of bigotry you feel passionate about)

[–] TuneAFish@lemmy.fmhy.ml 8 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

https://lemmy.ml/pictrs/image/R0jvd1Ck4y.jpg

Link is broken? Here's a Google one:

https://images.app.goo.gl/JMhtumiiPvmjvUQaA

[–] ifyoudontknowlearn@sh.itjust.works 8 points 1 year ago

work in a context where the person exercising their speech feels some necessity to use it responsibly

Nice phrasing

However there are people with legitimate ( beliefs and ideas honestly held that they wish to discuss ) views that I worry are going to be silenced and further marginalized.

Sounds kind and charitable. It is not clear to me how universal this is given your opening paragraphs. I would agree that is they way it should be but I don't think that reflects how it is. We need to react based on the actual reality we live in.

However if these are honestly held beliefs that they are willing to engage in civil discourse around I don't think it's right to actually block them.

But what if there is a significant number of people who are just awful humans, or don't have a thought for learning, or are not being open or honest etc.

I support the idea of engagement and discussion but let's be honest there are people who aren't interested in that. There are people who are racist. There are people who really do think you and I are going to hell and they are happy to know that. Sorry there is a reason I don't associate with people like that in real life and I don't want to on line either.

It is not my mission to discuss this kind of thing with all those people. Trolls and awful humans sometimes do need to be ignored. Otherwise we cannot have interesting or productive conversations with anyone.

I say, let those that want to engage and learn find a server or community with standards that we can tolerate. Any community that doesn't have standards to keep reasonable order we should block.

[–] Dayst0rm@sh.itjust.works 7 points 1 year ago

Free Speech Radicalism on the internet would be great in some places. It would be like 4chan but using I2P or Tor. I agree. Ideas need to be included so that people can be told how wrong they are and shown as idiots to the public. The internet is a good media for Free Speech Radicalism because you can always block someone and that's the end of the harrassment.

[–] Barbarian@sh.itjust.works 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

I hope this doesn't come across as snarky, but that was really hard to read. Here's the same thing formatted with paragraphs and tiny adjustments to punctuation to aid readability:

My current view is that while I want to promote openness and free speech that can really only work in a context where the person exercising their speech feels some necessity to use it responsibly and in an honest way.

On the internet that takes a lot of self control because the social norms of every day life don’t always apply because:

a) No one knows who you are

b) There is not a human being right in front of you that you might feel empathy for

c) There are no consequences to anything you say

d) Not all posts are even by humans.

With all these taken together there is a compelling argument that speech may need to be more highly regulated on the internet than in face to face interactions. However there are people with legitimate (beliefs and ideas honestly held that they wish to discuss) views that I worry are going to be silenced and further marginalized.

This is bad for society because if people get dismissed or pushed aside it just breeds resentment, distrust, and more misunderstanding. I think as we start defederating and making decisions we are setting up a dangerous situation where it becomes potentially easy to defederate for the wrong reasons.

For instance, “we think they are being racist” or “they are spreading misinformation” could have unintended consequences. Some religions and communities might have beliefs that appear to be pseudoscience or even discrimination. However if these are honestly held beliefs that they are willing to engage in civil discourse around I don’t think it’s right to actually block them.

This is likely just the beginning of a much larger discussion so what are your thoughts?

[–] drascus@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 year ago

thanks for the suggestion the post has been updated.

[–] Zirconium@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 year ago

Weren't there studies done on how deplatforming Nazi communities help deradicalize vulnerable people. Also its good to keep in mind that people who dont think they are wrong don't care to hear other people out. They would rather call you slurs than admit being wrong. You can't help someone who doesnt want help unfortunately. I saw a good video by "that dang dad" on if the left neglects "wbite cis men." And I think contrapoints is a good resource for helping people deradicalize.

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