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There's a really concerning trend on HN and elsewhere I'm seeing. Everyone now seems to think free speech is too dangerous to try and promote anymore. It's been

There's a really concerning trend on HN and elsewhere I'm seeing. Everyone now seems to think free speech is too dangerous to try and promote anymore. It's been a shift over a couple years. I'm not supporting Ye or any of his bullshit, but some of the comments on here are really chillingly authoritarian. Parler isn't going to be able to maintain "free speech" even if they or Kanye want it to, which I seriously doubt anyway. They don't "have it now" and they won't have it tomorrow either. Still, it's strange how HN flips so violently against free speech when the content is obviously offensive and low quality. People need to be better stewards of their own beliefs, not simply shielded from malicious, dim or unsavory ones out there in public. As an aside, I can't believe celebrities have the sway they do. Today's breed talks like such imbeciles; I have no idea how they keep people's interest.

giraffe_lady 4y ago
The idea that it's important to have a mainstream and consequence-free venue for all forms of speech may be your belief but it is not mine. My belief is that public forums with reach into the tens or hundreds of millions are fertile ground for nationalist and genocidal movements, and they will be used for that purpose if it is not actively prevented. Moderation of wide-reach public forums with the goal of preventing movements causing mass death and misery is perfectly consistent with my own beliefs about the value, conditions, and limits of free speech. You might believe differently, even oppose these beliefs, but the idea that the only correct stance is yours and all moral, rational people will converge on it is ridiculous.
- barbariangrunge 4y ago
  > The idea that it's important to have a mainstream and consequence-free venue for all forms of speech may be your belief but it is not mine. Well, imagine that you got kicked off the internet for saying what you just said? You’re only allowed to express your disagreement because of free speech principles
  - giraffe_lady 4y ago
    I have frankly radical political beliefs and am outspoken about them: getting banned and censored is not a hypothetical situation for me but an experience I have actually had many times. Nevertheless I remain committed to preventing the growth of nationalist, racist, and genocidal movements, and I've come to believe that this requires moderation of large-scale public internet forums. There is no fair, reasonable, effective content-neutral strategy here. All moderation is ideological, including the choice not to moderate at all. And every choice within that constraint will have consequences. We are better off looking at the consequences we want to prevent and working backwards, than we are starting from a specific ideology and moderating the way it demands. "No moderation at all" isn't a virtuous abstinence from making this choice or being responsible for the outcomes, it is just one option among many, and one I find to have unacceptable consequences.
  - mikkergp 4y ago
    > You’re only allowed to express your disagreement because of free speech principles Sort of true, but it doesn't make sense not to re-evaluate how we apply those principles when we encounter dramatic changes in communication patterns. You can believe in freedom of speech as an end in itself, or you can believe in freedom of speech as better than the alternative. If you think of it as better than the alternative, then you should be consistently measuring to ensure that is still true.
- monopoliessuck 4y ago
  > the idea that the only correct stance is yours and all moral, rational people will converge on it is ridiculous. I never said that. Conversations exist to be had, good ideas should be promoted and bad ideas disproven and cast aside. Ideas should be considered and judged on their merits, even ones I don't agree with. There's certainly no requirement for any individual to engage. Despite calling me out, there's irony inherent here in that you believe your stance is the only one that deserves to even be considered. Censoring those that do not believe as you do is the definition of believing you have the "only correct stance". People do and should have the option to curtail speech in their spaces as they see fit. I choose to converse on platforms that limit my and other's speech minimally. That's not an endorsement of "nationalist or genocidal movements". > Moderation of wide-reach public forums with the goal of preventing movements causing mass death and misery... Claimed goals are always rosy until they aren't. Individuals habituated to not having to determine truth for themselves are ultimately doing themselves a disservice. That said, if people prefer platforms that censor certain content, then those platforms will thrive; that's fine and they have. I don't think though that information freedom is on most people's radars when they choose a social media platform. A lot of this legislation that requires mandated strict moderation will only work to entrench big players that can pay to do so. I'm not a racist genocidal nationalist and I don't follow nor broadcast their content. I still don't want their existence in the public sphere to limit my expression. They're not that important and we shouldn't make them out to be.
  - giraffe_lady 4y ago
    > I still don't want their existence in the public sphere to limit my expression. They're not that important and we shouldn't make them out to be. See this is the key thing and a conflict I pretty much expect and accept. I think they are important, on the metric of their body count over the last century. I'm willing to accept some limitations to public speech, both mine and yours, to reduce their power and risk in the future. You don't accept that tradeoff, which I find a consistent and reasonable position that I also oppose. But your first comment did imply that it was the only valid position for reasonable people to have ("better stewards of their beliefs"). You may not have intended that meaning but it's the one I read.
- RedBeetDeadpool 4y ago
  > My belief is that public forums with reach into the tens or hundreds of millions are fertile ground for nationalist and genocidal movements, and they will be used for that purpose if it is not actively prevented. Yes, we must crush all opposition so your side can have absolute power!!! Let them speak? Not one chance, where shall you draw the line? Where only your side wishes to draw the line, of course. Perhaps, the only choice then is to crush the other side, for if you don't they will use the forum for "nationalist and genocidal movements". So you see, they must be eliminated in their entirety. Wiped from the existence of all forums, wiped from participation in establishing truths. Or maybe, since they always seem to find support, always seem to find people willing to fight for the rights they represent, always seem to come back when you try to silence and silence and silence every mouth that exists, instead of repeatedly ineffectively trying to suffocate a voice that wishes to speak, maybe what you need to do is to eliminate them all, all of them from existence. This is the only way you will ever prevent genocide.
toiletfuneral 4y ago
adamrezich 4y ago
> There's a really concerning trend on HN and elsewhere I'm seeing. Everyone now seems to think free speech is too dangerous to try and promote anymore. It's been a shift over a couple years. this is the result of years of propaganda enacted on an unsuspecting, smartphone-using populace. before the smartphone, the venn diagram of "advocate of free speech" and "Internet user" was a circle—look how far we've fallen since then.
- hackerlight 4y ago
  No, it's because the world has drastically changed and people have updated their views given the advent of significant new information. Namely, the invention of social media was the paradigm shifting catalyst.
pelorat 4y ago
> Parler isn't going to be able to maintain "free speech" even if they or Kanye want it to Correct, because they allow EU users to sign up and therefore has to comply with various European countries content laws (including GDPR). Depending on their size and amount of users they could also be forced to store data on EU servers. They would have to remove material illegal in some countries if they have users from said country, i.e German users on Parler posting Nazi material are committing a crime, Parler needs to be able to remove it in time, or face consequences. Same goes for HN. Sure many small services that let EU citizens sign up on them fly under the radar, but won't for long when more and more people complain to the authorities. Look at Truth Social, it's not available in the EU because they would face fines if it was and they know it. In the end it's pretty simple. Do you allow EU users on your platform? Then you need content moderation.
shepherdjerred 4y ago
> There's a really concerning trend on HN and elsewhere I'm seeing. Everyone now seems to think free speech is too dangerous to try and promote anymore. What are you thoughts on free speech regarding misinformation or election denial? When so many republican candidates reject the result of 2020, what's the right answer? Allow them to continue to divide the country up until half of the populace no longer trusts the democracy and starts another civil war?
- monopoliessuck 4y ago
  I think mandated information disclosure is extremely important in a capitalist system. How can we make good decisions if we don't have good information? We need to ask more questions, trust, but verify. We do pass laws that require those that sell products and services to disclose X, Y and Z for their products in a standardized and uniform manner. Likewise, we should be skeptical and critical about what others are telling us. Information that's not tied to such a simple tit for tat relationship gets in the weeds though. How do you define "misinformation" as it pertains to your mother on someone's feed? You can claim and sue for damages and if a judge and jury find your case, then that's what it is, but mandating strict systematic moderation of all internet users on social media is not the same as mandating information disclosure for the Kellogs or IKEAs of the world. We've decided that Horseradish dyed green can be sold as Wasabi on the ingredients list. This is officially supported misinformation right? In this instance, election denial is almost complete idiocy, yes, but barring "election denial" wholesale is a terrible thing to do. Your questions are quite leading too. We need more discussion around these topics, not less. I've talked election deniers off their stupid cliffs before. When SCOTUS shot down the Bush v. Gore recount decades ago, Americans had reason to be upset and talk about it. Would it have been more unifying if everyone had just bowed their heads, quickly and quietly, accepting the results without fuss, sure... Censorship is a great tool for quelling public dissent. It's a shortcut around reason though and we've built up these tribal walls that preclude solving problems together. If quieting dissenters is the thing you want to maximize, you'll do great with it. We're not the only ones chomping at the bit to censor those that disagree with us, but I guess be careful what you wish for.
  - 4y ago
systemvoltage 4y ago
I am with you and this shift is totally alarming. I've seen the pendulum swing slowly, the frog boiling slowly. Now, top comments are about curbing speech which is just insane even in the worst possible interpretation of social media effects. This is not an HN phenomenon. NYT/WaPo and the left machine is operating on anti-free speech mode right now in combination with Big Corporate + ESG. (See Cloudflare and Kiwifarms issue recently).
hackerlight 4y ago
People (including yourself, even if you don't realize it) argue for limits on speech in order to protect freedom and liberty. That's not an essentially authoritarian position. It's consistent with liberalism. For example, you probably support making incitement to violence illegal. That is an "authoritarian" position that you agree with. You are using the government to force someone to stop saying something that they wish to say. And yet you support it. Because you implicitly realize that there's no pure world where speech can't infringe on other's freedoms. In the real world you have tension between the rights and freedoms of two people. There's no substitute to fairly arbitrary line drawing that balances this tension. People simply disagree on where the line should be drawn in order to maximize overall freedom.

giraffe_lady 4y ago

The idea that it's important to have a mainstream and consequence-free venue for all forms of speech may be your belief but it is not mine. My belief is that public forums with reach into the tens or hundreds of millions are fertile ground for nationalist and genocidal movements, and they will be used for that purpose if it is not actively prevented. Moderation of wide-reach public forums with the goal of preventing movements causing mass death and misery is perfectly consistent with my own beliefs about the value, conditions, and limits of free speech. You might believe differently, even oppose these beliefs, but the idea that the only correct stance is yours and all moral, rational people will converge on it is ridiculous.

barbariangrunge 4y ago
> The idea that it's important to have a mainstream and consequence-free venue for all forms of speech may be your belief but it is not mine. Well, imagine that you got kicked off the internet for saying what you just said? You’re only allowed to express your disagreement because of free speech principles
- giraffe_lady 4y ago
  I have frankly radical political beliefs and am outspoken about them: getting banned and censored is not a hypothetical situation for me but an experience I have actually had many times. Nevertheless I remain committed to preventing the growth of nationalist, racist, and genocidal movements, and I've come to believe that this requires moderation of large-scale public internet forums. There is no fair, reasonable, effective content-neutral strategy here. All moderation is ideological, including the choice not to moderate at all. And every choice within that constraint will have consequences. We are better off looking at the consequences we want to prevent and working backwards, than we are starting from a specific ideology and moderating the way it demands. "No moderation at all" isn't a virtuous abstinence from making this choice or being responsible for the outcomes, it is just one option among many, and one I find to have unacceptable consequences.
- mikkergp 4y ago
  > You’re only allowed to express your disagreement because of free speech principles Sort of true, but it doesn't make sense not to re-evaluate how we apply those principles when we encounter dramatic changes in communication patterns. You can believe in freedom of speech as an end in itself, or you can believe in freedom of speech as better than the alternative. If you think of it as better than the alternative, then you should be consistently measuring to ensure that is still true.
monopoliessuck 4y ago
> the idea that the only correct stance is yours and all moral, rational people will converge on it is ridiculous. I never said that. Conversations exist to be had, good ideas should be promoted and bad ideas disproven and cast aside. Ideas should be considered and judged on their merits, even ones I don't agree with. There's certainly no requirement for any individual to engage. Despite calling me out, there's irony inherent here in that you believe your stance is the only one that deserves to even be considered. Censoring those that do not believe as you do is the definition of believing you have the "only correct stance". People do and should have the option to curtail speech in their spaces as they see fit. I choose to converse on platforms that limit my and other's speech minimally. That's not an endorsement of "nationalist or genocidal movements". > Moderation of wide-reach public forums with the goal of preventing movements causing mass death and misery... Claimed goals are always rosy until they aren't. Individuals habituated to not having to determine truth for themselves are ultimately doing themselves a disservice. That said, if people prefer platforms that censor certain content, then those platforms will thrive; that's fine and they have. I don't think though that information freedom is on most people's radars when they choose a social media platform. A lot of this legislation that requires mandated strict moderation will only work to entrench big players that can pay to do so. I'm not a racist genocidal nationalist and I don't follow nor broadcast their content. I still don't want their existence in the public sphere to limit my expression. They're not that important and we shouldn't make them out to be.
- giraffe_lady 4y ago
  > I still don't want their existence in the public sphere to limit my expression. They're not that important and we shouldn't make them out to be. See this is the key thing and a conflict I pretty much expect and accept. I think they are important, on the metric of their body count over the last century. I'm willing to accept some limitations to public speech, both mine and yours, to reduce their power and risk in the future. You don't accept that tradeoff, which I find a consistent and reasonable position that I also oppose. But your first comment did imply that it was the only valid position for reasonable people to have ("better stewards of their beliefs"). You may not have intended that meaning but it's the one I read.
RedBeetDeadpool 4y ago
> My belief is that public forums with reach into the tens or hundreds of millions are fertile ground for nationalist and genocidal movements, and they will be used for that purpose if it is not actively prevented. Yes, we must crush all opposition so your side can have absolute power!!! Let them speak? Not one chance, where shall you draw the line? Where only your side wishes to draw the line, of course. Perhaps, the only choice then is to crush the other side, for if you don't they will use the forum for "nationalist and genocidal movements". So you see, they must be eliminated in their entirety. Wiped from the existence of all forums, wiped from participation in establishing truths. Or maybe, since they always seem to find support, always seem to find people willing to fight for the rights they represent, always seem to come back when you try to silence and silence and silence every mouth that exists, instead of repeatedly ineffectively trying to suffocate a voice that wishes to speak, maybe what you need to do is to eliminate them all, all of them from existence. This is the only way you will ever prevent genocide.

toiletfuneral 4y ago

adamrezich 4y ago

> There's a really concerning trend on HN and elsewhere I'm seeing. Everyone now seems to think free speech is too dangerous to try and promote anymore. It's been a shift over a couple years. this is the result of years of propaganda enacted on an unsuspecting, smartphone-using populace. before the smartphone, the venn diagram of "advocate of free speech" and "Internet user" was a circle—look how far we've fallen since then.

hackerlight 4y ago
No, it's because the world has drastically changed and people have updated their views given the advent of significant new information. Namely, the invention of social media was the paradigm shifting catalyst.

pelorat 4y ago

> Parler isn't going to be able to maintain "free speech" even if they or Kanye want it to Correct, because they allow EU users to sign up and therefore has to comply with various European countries content laws (including GDPR). Depending on their size and amount of users they could also be forced to store data on EU servers. They would have to remove material illegal in some countries if they have users from said country, i.e German users on Parler posting Nazi material are committing a crime, Parler needs to be able to remove it in time, or face consequences. Same goes for HN. Sure many small services that let EU citizens sign up on them fly under the radar, but won't for long when more and more people complain to the authorities. Look at Truth Social, it's not available in the EU because they would face fines if it was and they know it. In the end it's pretty simple. Do you allow EU users on your platform? Then you need content moderation.

shepherdjerred 4y ago

> There's a really concerning trend on HN and elsewhere I'm seeing. Everyone now seems to think free speech is too dangerous to try and promote anymore. What are you thoughts on free speech regarding misinformation or election denial? When so many republican candidates reject the result of 2020, what's the right answer? Allow them to continue to divide the country up until half of the populace no longer trusts the democracy and starts another civil war?

monopoliessuck 4y ago
I think mandated information disclosure is extremely important in a capitalist system. How can we make good decisions if we don't have good information? We need to ask more questions, trust, but verify. We do pass laws that require those that sell products and services to disclose X, Y and Z for their products in a standardized and uniform manner. Likewise, we should be skeptical and critical about what others are telling us. Information that's not tied to such a simple tit for tat relationship gets in the weeds though. How do you define "misinformation" as it pertains to your mother on someone's feed? You can claim and sue for damages and if a judge and jury find your case, then that's what it is, but mandating strict systematic moderation of all internet users on social media is not the same as mandating information disclosure for the Kellogs or IKEAs of the world. We've decided that Horseradish dyed green can be sold as Wasabi on the ingredients list. This is officially supported misinformation right? In this instance, election denial is almost complete idiocy, yes, but barring "election denial" wholesale is a terrible thing to do. Your questions are quite leading too. We need more discussion around these topics, not less. I've talked election deniers off their stupid cliffs before. When SCOTUS shot down the Bush v. Gore recount decades ago, Americans had reason to be upset and talk about it. Would it have been more unifying if everyone had just bowed their heads, quickly and quietly, accepting the results without fuss, sure... Censorship is a great tool for quelling public dissent. It's a shortcut around reason though and we've built up these tribal walls that preclude solving problems together. If quieting dissenters is the thing you want to maximize, you'll do great with it. We're not the only ones chomping at the bit to censor those that disagree with us, but I guess be careful what you wish for.
- 4y ago

systemvoltage 4y ago

I am with you and this shift is totally alarming. I've seen the pendulum swing slowly, the frog boiling slowly. Now, top comments are about curbing speech which is just insane even in the worst possible interpretation of social media effects. This is not an HN phenomenon. NYT/WaPo and the left machine is operating on anti-free speech mode right now in combination with Big Corporate + ESG. (See Cloudflare and Kiwifarms issue recently).

hackerlight 4y ago

People (including yourself, even if you don't realize it) argue for limits on speech in order to protect freedom and liberty. That's not an essentially authoritarian position. It's consistent with liberalism. For example, you probably support making incitement to violence illegal. That is an "authoritarian" position that you agree with. You are using the government to force someone to stop saying something that they wish to say. And yet you support it. Because you implicitly realize that there's no pure world where speech can't infringe on other's freedoms. In the real world you have tension between the rights and freedoms of two people. There's no substitute to fairly arbitrary line drawing that balances this tension. People simply disagree on where the line should be drawn in order to maximize overall freedom.