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Not dead - you can speak your mind - just you pay a social price to do so. Free speech, even in the most libertarian concept I have doesn't prevent other people

Not dead - you can speak your mind - just you pay a social price to do so. Free speech, even in the most libertarian concept I have doesn't prevent other people's right to criticize your speech - in fact, I'd say it encourages just that. Speak out against stuff you don't like rather than censoring it. Ultimately it's an effect of large, diverse communities and deep political divisions. If you want to have political discussions in such public places without suffering a reputation hit, the only way to do so is under a pseudonym - and you're free to do that on many sites.

humanrebar 9y ago
Just because something is legal doesn't mean we're at liberty to do it. People mistake society for government and vice versa.
- problems 9y ago
  I'd argue you're still at liberty to do it - you just have to be willing to accept any social prices associated with it. Other people enjoy the same liberties that you do, they have every right to think and say whatever they will about you due to your speech. Of course, this is really only a significant issue on a public forum, on which you can post pseudonymously and still gain any benefits of discussion without paying any significant toll. Some people view this as a negative and want to ban this kind of commenting - I love it, it means you can experiment with different views, make arguments you might not want to make in real life and see what sticks with you.
  - halomru 9y ago
    >Id argue you're still at liberty to do it - you just have to be willing to accept any social prices associated with it. You can say that about almost anything. I'm at liberty to murder my neighbor, I just have to accept the price.
    - problems 9y ago
      I'm talking in terms of moral rights - which not necessarily everyone will agree on - but there are some generally accepted ones. For example, murder would violate your neighbors right to life. Denying your neighbor the ability to speak out against your opinions violates their right to free speech. If you don't like it, argue back.
    - abiox 9y ago
      this looks like equivocation. the quoted 'at liberty' seems to refer to something like not being restricted by the law of the land. saying 'at liberty to murder' seems to refer to something like bodily autonomy/physical capability.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
nazgul17 9y ago
Social media can become mass media, and it's not up to you to decide if and when that happens. In the past, you could just vocalise your opinion, and it would not survive many hops in the real-world social network. So yeah, you can express your opinion, but your chance of being crucified for it has risen significantly.
- problems 9y ago
  If you express your opinion on a private forum instead of a public one, you're much less likely to be crucified for it. I can make nasty off-handed comments to my friends in private chat all day, with very little fear that it'll see the light. Ultimately sheer quantity of people is the bigger problem than anything else.
  - alaaibrahim 9y ago
    > I can make nasty off-handed comments to my friends in private chat all day, with very little fear that it'll see the light. And then, someone decides to take a screenshot, out of context, and post it somewhere for the whole world to see.
    - problems 9y ago
      It's possible, but it's far, far less likely than a post on social media with your name tied to it - it's also completely deniable and contains only usernames.
      - TeMPOraL 9y ago
        This crosses the Internet boundary too - see e.g. the well-known case of a guy who lost his job because someone overheard his meatspace conversation and decided to post it on-line...
- root_axis 9y ago
  > In the past, you could just vocalise your opinion, and it would not survive many hops in the real-world social network. In the past, "vocalizing your opinion" meant debating friends over drinks, the difference today is that every person with an opinion deliberately leverages modern technology to broadcast that opinion to as many people as possible, and the more that receive it, the better. Naturally, people who disagree will respond... the system is working as intended.
mercurysmessage 9y ago
Exactly. Free speech goes both ways. The only people I see saying things like 'free speech is dead', are usually the ones who want to say ignorant things and get away with it.
- StevePerkins 9y ago
  I'll file that away alongside, "The only people who care about privacy are those with something to hide".
  - mercurysmessage 9y ago
    Except that is completely different. If you throw a protest, other people have a right to counter-protest.
  - ue_ 9y ago
    Not at all; that's an argument used against the right of privacy. GP was merely remarking that those who lament free speech being dead seem to be, at least from my point of view, those who say bad things. Maybe they have a right to say them, but you'll find this occuring elsewhere. Voat for example was set up as a website that's like reddit but free from "censorship". That being its attractive quality, many people who value that quality highly went there, and it quickly turned into a truly vile place. My hypothesis is that this happened because the most of the people who could be described as "censored on Reddit" were actually censored for what I would think is a good reason - for saying vile/Nazi/etc. things. Therefore, even if that group was not entirely made of such people, Voat became a place just for them. I think that communities which have a major selling point of free speech will tend to attract those who feel censored first, and bound to fall into the sort of site almost nobody wants, driving away "legitimate" censored users and failing to attract more people. Most "good" things aren't censored, remember.
    - problems 9y ago
      Even when looked at from a progressive perspective I think what you're bringing up is a bigger problem to be honest. You're taking people who maybe think that say, write shitty things about fat people or want to use that as motivation to lose weight and putting them in a basket with people who were subscribed to /r/niggers. Pushing people out of major communities over minor offenses only results in the promotion of more offensive views in those people. This kind of exclusion from the mainstream results in extremification of views in those individuals. I've felt it myself, I've found myself agreeing with things that I know mere years ago I would have outright rejected, but now contemplate. People don't back down on views like that, they just clamp down harder. So in my opinion it's a lot better to just argue with them and not to censor them.
shados 9y ago
Realistically, being in a blue state, if i were to say anything but the most politically popular thing about this topic on Twitter or Facebook, and a colleague got wind of it, I'd get fired, and be essentially unemployable in any of the big tech hubs. Unless I wanted to work for the next Uber-like company that will inevitably get destroyed online (even if its for good reasons). The social price is extremely high now. It's very nearly as bad as being tossed in jail.
RUG3Y 9y ago
I agree that it's normal to pay a social price for saying crummy things. I'd argue that the climate of our times is such that even reasonable opinions that conflict with a certain point of view are demonized and punished. We've become ultra sensitive and overbearing as a society.
abiox 9y ago
> just you pay a social price to do so it's not unheard of for this to go much, much further. doxxing, harassing associates, campaigns to fire people, 'de-platforming', stigmatization etc. such pursuit of wrongthink produces chilling effects and balkanization.

humanrebar 9y ago

Just because something is legal doesn't mean we're at liberty to do it. People mistake society for government and vice versa.

problems 9y ago
I'd argue you're still at liberty to do it - you just have to be willing to accept any social prices associated with it. Other people enjoy the same liberties that you do, they have every right to think and say whatever they will about you due to your speech. Of course, this is really only a significant issue on a public forum, on which you can post pseudonymously and still gain any benefits of discussion without paying any significant toll. Some people view this as a negative and want to ban this kind of commenting - I love it, it means you can experiment with different views, make arguments you might not want to make in real life and see what sticks with you.
- halomru 9y ago
  >Id argue you're still at liberty to do it - you just have to be willing to accept any social prices associated with it. You can say that about almost anything. I'm at liberty to murder my neighbor, I just have to accept the price.
  - problems 9y ago
    I'm talking in terms of moral rights - which not necessarily everyone will agree on - but there are some generally accepted ones. For example, murder would violate your neighbors right to life. Denying your neighbor the ability to speak out against your opinions violates their right to free speech. If you don't like it, argue back.
  - abiox 9y ago
    this looks like equivocation. the quoted 'at liberty' seems to refer to something like not being restricted by the law of the land. saying 'at liberty to murder' seems to refer to something like bodily autonomy/physical capability.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

nazgul17 9y ago

Social media can become mass media, and it's not up to you to decide if and when that happens. In the past, you could just vocalise your opinion, and it would not survive many hops in the real-world social network. So yeah, you can express your opinion, but your chance of being crucified for it has risen significantly.

problems 9y ago
If you express your opinion on a private forum instead of a public one, you're much less likely to be crucified for it. I can make nasty off-handed comments to my friends in private chat all day, with very little fear that it'll see the light. Ultimately sheer quantity of people is the bigger problem than anything else.
- alaaibrahim 9y ago
  > I can make nasty off-handed comments to my friends in private chat all day, with very little fear that it'll see the light. And then, someone decides to take a screenshot, out of context, and post it somewhere for the whole world to see.
  - problems 9y ago
    It's possible, but it's far, far less likely than a post on social media with your name tied to it - it's also completely deniable and contains only usernames.
    - TeMPOraL 9y ago
      This crosses the Internet boundary too - see e.g. the well-known case of a guy who lost his job because someone overheard his meatspace conversation and decided to post it on-line...
root_axis 9y ago
> In the past, you could just vocalise your opinion, and it would not survive many hops in the real-world social network. In the past, "vocalizing your opinion" meant debating friends over drinks, the difference today is that every person with an opinion deliberately leverages modern technology to broadcast that opinion to as many people as possible, and the more that receive it, the better. Naturally, people who disagree will respond... the system is working as intended.

mercurysmessage 9y ago

Exactly. Free speech goes both ways. The only people I see saying things like 'free speech is dead', are usually the ones who want to say ignorant things and get away with it.

StevePerkins 9y ago
I'll file that away alongside, "The only people who care about privacy are those with something to hide".
- mercurysmessage 9y ago
  Except that is completely different. If you throw a protest, other people have a right to counter-protest.
- ue_ 9y ago
  Not at all; that's an argument used against the right of privacy. GP was merely remarking that those who lament free speech being dead seem to be, at least from my point of view, those who say bad things. Maybe they have a right to say them, but you'll find this occuring elsewhere. Voat for example was set up as a website that's like reddit but free from "censorship". That being its attractive quality, many people who value that quality highly went there, and it quickly turned into a truly vile place. My hypothesis is that this happened because the most of the people who could be described as "censored on Reddit" were actually censored for what I would think is a good reason - for saying vile/Nazi/etc. things. Therefore, even if that group was not entirely made of such people, Voat became a place just for them. I think that communities which have a major selling point of free speech will tend to attract those who feel censored first, and bound to fall into the sort of site almost nobody wants, driving away "legitimate" censored users and failing to attract more people. Most "good" things aren't censored, remember.
  - problems 9y ago
    Even when looked at from a progressive perspective I think what you're bringing up is a bigger problem to be honest. You're taking people who maybe think that say, write shitty things about fat people or want to use that as motivation to lose weight and putting them in a basket with people who were subscribed to /r/niggers. Pushing people out of major communities over minor offenses only results in the promotion of more offensive views in those people. This kind of exclusion from the mainstream results in extremification of views in those individuals. I've felt it myself, I've found myself agreeing with things that I know mere years ago I would have outright rejected, but now contemplate. People don't back down on views like that, they just clamp down harder. So in my opinion it's a lot better to just argue with them and not to censor them.

shados 9y ago

Realistically, being in a blue state, if i were to say anything but the most politically popular thing about this topic on Twitter or Facebook, and a colleague got wind of it, I'd get fired, and be essentially unemployable in any of the big tech hubs. Unless I wanted to work for the next Uber-like company that will inevitably get destroyed online (even if its for good reasons). The social price is extremely high now. It's very nearly as bad as being tossed in jail.

RUG3Y 9y ago

I agree that it's normal to pay a social price for saying crummy things. I'd argue that the climate of our times is such that even reasonable opinions that conflict with a certain point of view are demonized and punished. We've become ultra sensitive and overbearing as a society.

abiox 9y ago

> just you pay a social price to do so it's not unheard of for this to go much, much further. doxxing, harassing associates, campaigns to fire people, 'de-platforming', stigmatization etc. such pursuit of wrongthink produces chilling effects and balkanization.