this post was submitted on 06 Aug 2024
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Focused on “free speech”?
When I see that used multiple times by a platform operator it invariably means they’re right-wing wingnuts and/or the platform will devolve into right wing drivel while silencing dissent.
Yup. And on descriptive grounds, the whole thing falls into a false dichotomy: treating free speech as an all-or-nothing matter, instead treating freedom of speech as a scale. And that giving someone complete freedom of speech always means restricting the freedom of speech of someone else.
(I typically exemplify this through a guy with a megaphone in an offline plaza. Telling him to drop off the megaphone reduces his ability to reach willing listeners, thus his freedom of speech; but if you leave him alone nobody else can be heard, so their freedom of speech is lowered.)
Thank you, you put it better than I could. It’s not binary, it’s not all or nothing. You can have some freedom of speech and yet still not really have freedom of speech if you’re silenced by those who disagree.
Yes, your megaphone example is a special case of the paradox of tolerance. In this instance, tolerance of loud voices means quiet voices are drowned out.
It's related - Popper's paradox highlights that you can't compromise with some people, while my focus is that you need to impose some limits.
It's easy to tweak the example though, to be more like the paradox - if the megaphone guy is telling people to kick off the plaza some people, or saying stuff to make them leave.
Yes, or if multiple people get into a megaphone arms race and are all noise blasting each other so hard that no one can hear anything anymore.
The only way free speech can survive is with decentralized platforms like email and lemmy. Any time there is central control free speech isn't.
This isn’t even a true statement. Mods are human and can silence views they don’t like.
Go post some progressive and democratic views or criticize authoritarian support over on the grad.ml side. See how long it is before you’re shut down, blocked or even banned. There’s no free speech rule just because the platform is decentralized.
The only mitigating factors are that you can have a platform for opposing views, but even that isn't a guarantee here because the instance can be defederated and effectively silenced.
It's free speech in a federated environment because someone can't remove your voice.
It doesn't obligate anyone to listen to you. So federated instances having opinions about who they talk to doesn't contradict free speech.
People who want to talk about The Second Coming of the Space Pope are free to do so and don't require any third party to let them do so.
Couldn't that argument of different instances and their opinions be said about different centralised companies as well?
That’s what I said regarding starting your own instance to say what you want. I’m not sure why you felt the need to reiterate that.
And you also repeated what I said that nobody is obligated to listen to you - the instance can be defederated or admins can ban you.
So you essentially agree?
I disagree with you saying my statement isn't true.
Any system that is centralized, and requires a third party to "allow" speech will tend to not have free speech.
My argument is regarding the idea that the fediverse faces the same issues with control of who gets to see what you say because people are people and instances controlled by people that may not like what you say can ban you or defederate.
You want to narrow the argument to centralized control, but imo that isn’t relevant to the overall premise that people tend to equate “free speech” not just to saying what you want but also people’s ability to hear it, and the fact is that even on the fediverse people are still silenced whether or not you agree with what they’re saying.
The fediverse is a thousand little moderators on a thousand little hills, its distributed decision making.
Free speech is not having anyone stopping you from having your soap box, it has nothing to do with guaranteeing you a audience, as long as those who want to listen can get to your soap box then the speech is free.
You contradict yourself.
If you cannot get an audience then nobody can “get to your soap box”. That’s akin to sending yourself an email that nobody else will see, you’re shouting to the void. The entire point of free speech is the expectation to be heard, otherwise there’s no point.
Now we’re splitting hairs. Your premise is that being heard by anyone at all is free speech, but you disregard being silenced by those that don’t want to hear you.
My premise is that being silenced by anyone is not free speech regardless of the platform or workarounds. IOW there is no absolute freedom of speech even on a decentralized platform like the fediverse. I think that’s an objective truth.
From your definition if you speak and there exists one human who cannot hear you (asleep, in a different place, or deaf) then you have no free speech because you didn't have total distribution.
My definition is if a group of people want to talk about the space pope nobody can stop them from doing so amongst themselves.
I acknowledge we have different definitions, and i appreciate the discussion we have had, thank you for helping me see your viewpoint.
It’s not a binary choice, and that’s disingenuous to make it one.
Your second paragraph is not relevant because it excludes dissenting opinion that may not want to hear about the space pope. The anti-space pope league admin is not in the group of people you posit.
Thank you for the discussion.
E: ivxferre does a better job making the distinction than I do.
https://mander.xyz/comment/12562291
At the core of the human experience two people can talk about anything, all these machines and networks need to enable that same experience.
If three people get together and two want to talk about the space pope and one doesn't because they are part of the anti-space pope league, the third person can change the topic, argue with the other two, or leave the group.
If later 10 people come together in a group and half are pro-space pope and half are anti-space pope and they don't always have to talk about the space-pope. If people in the anti-space pope group decide to stop coming to the gathering because they don't want to talk space-pope anymore... this is normal behavior, and computers and networks should enable this behavior pattern.
As far as I can tell lemmy enabled all of this behavior patterns.
You think Lemmy has free speech? Some major mods here are quite liberal in controlling exactly what speech and ideas they allow their uses to be exposed to, and that is how it will always be by those desiring power over others.
Yes, Lemmy is 100% free speech.
We can make lemmy.spacepope.org and nobody can silence us. It doesn't prevent other instances from refusing to listen to the truth of space, but those who want to participate can.
eyeroll
And that's more-or-less what Odysee is working toward.
Link to an example where the platform in question has silenced dissent?
I didn’t say it did.
I said it’s a behavior that platforms like this have a habit of doing so.
It remains to be seen.
Looks like you care zilch for free speech. If you and others with this opinion cared for free speech, you would promote your own alternative ideas on those platforms to even things out, instead of whining that there's more opposing views to yours on the platform than not.
Did you specifically skip past the past where I said they silence dissent?
But thanks for telling me what I believe.
Do they? Do you have evidence?
Because I'm interested in YT alternatives. I pay for Nebula, and I'm interested in other platforms as well, especially if they champion free speech (like, actual free speech, not whatever Musk means by "free speech").
Sure. Me. I’ve had comments deleted by admins when I criticized things like Russia feeding arms to Iran, operating misinformation campaigns, and generally trying to destabilize democracies.
That's lame. Was that before or after LBRY's bankruptcy? I'm wondering if they've changed their admins.
Dunno? It was about a half year ago.
"If you really cared about free speech you wouldn't be using your free speech to call out Nazis"