For me I would hold the social media companies more to account when it comes to hate speech and harassment online and force social media companies to do more to stop online harassment and hate speech.

  • blight [he/him]English
    6•2 years ago

    Not everything you disagree with is hate speech. I think eg Germany has pretty strict limitations on specifically hate speech, but there are still plenty of people voicing opposing views.

      • AnCuRuadh ΔΘ :verified_trans:
        1•2 years ago

        @Dyskolos I would like my speech to be free from transphobes sending me death threats and creepy, perverted sexual fantasies. Is there a reason why you don’t want my speech to be free of such harassment? Is it, perhaps, because you want me silenced?

        @blight

        • Dyskolos
          1•2 years ago

          1. Free speech doesn’t mean you are free of any speech you don’t like.

          2. Why would i want you silenced? Because you’re trans? I don’t care. I’m misanthropic. Sex, gender, race doesn’t matter to me at all. I recently lost a trans-friend to trans-hate.

          3. I would like you to be free of hatespeech too. And threats. And fantasies. I never said i would want transhaters to be in a transforum. Or nazis in a jew-forum or… Unless they’re there to inform themselves to re-evaluate their hate. Hate is often grounded on ignorance and missing knowledge. Only if you’re never willing to do that, you’re a dimwitted moron.

      • phillaholic
        0•2 years ago

        That only really works if the government is preventing you from saying it, and it’s not something like slander or causing panic. If your lemmy instance banned talking about Pickles, it’s not a free speech issue. It’s a private instance who can have their own rules.

          • phillaholic
            2•2 years ago

            You better be ready to own the consequences of that stance, which I assume you’ve been privileged not to need to. You can look up any number of mass shooters or terrorists who only got there due to online radicalization.

          • darq
            1•2 years ago

            I personally prefer spaces where everyone can voice any shit. Censorship is for lazy minds and a dull audience. IMHO.

            I always find this take to be remarkably short-sighted.

            Because if you actually want to hear diverse opinions, you have to cultivate a space where diverse people, with diverse experiences, feel free to speak.

            Pretty much every space that tolerates open bigotry becomes deeply unpleasant for the targets of that bigotry. Which means those people tend to leave.

            Which in turn means that those spaces soon turn into the dullest echo chamber, populated only by people unaffected the bigotry. Sure no views were censored. You just harass everybody different off the platform. The net effect is the same.

              • darq
                0•2 years ago

                Is it the fault of the principle of free speech, or the legion of stupid people being allowed to talk freely?

                I’m not talking about “the principal of free speech”. I’m pushing back on the foolish assertion that moderation leads to echo chambers for lazy and dull minds. When exactly the opposite is true.

                I’m saying that if you want to hear diverse opinions, a free-for-all is a bad idea. Because that free-for-all leads to echo chambers.

                You probably want restrictions because it would never apply to you. Denying you talking about stuff that doesn’t phase you, is easy.

                No no, don’t make stupid assumptions about me so that you don’t have to confront my point.

                What if that platform bans opinions that you happen to have?

                Most of them do. Your assumptions are wrong.

                Sure, if you point at 4chan or similar…free speech attracts shitnuggets and end up being an echo chamber. But that’s the fault of us humans being crap, and not free speech being inherently bad.

                I never said free speech was inherently bad. Try responding to what I wrote, not what you imagined that I wrote.

                  • Martin Kelly
                    0•2 years ago

                    @Dyskolos @darq “But how can I hear “diverse opinion” if X opinions are banned/blocked/moderated in the first place?” i believe Stormfront has chat forums

                  • darq
                    0•2 years ago

                    But how can I hear “diverse opinion” if X opinions are banned/blocked/moderated in the first place?

                    There is no space where all opinions are welcome. It simply does not exist. Some opinions are going to force out others.

                    If you run a space where Nazi opinions are okay to speak, you can’t really expect to hear Jewish opinions. Or opinions of PoC or queer people or disabled people and so on and so on.

                    So most places do the calculations. You can ban this one view. And in return an entire spectrum of views becomes more welcome.

                    Bigotry is a painfully simple, painfully shallow, and painfully boring viewpoint. It is almost completely one-dimensional, simplifiable to the idea that the “other” is inferior or dangerous and is to be shunned or feared. It is a viewpoint that we all already know, one we have all already heard. Banning it loses us almost nothing, and in return we gain so, so many more valuable insights.

            • Dyskolos
              1•2 years ago

              Free speech doesn’t mean free harassment or threats. What is wrong with you? I can say “i hate green hair” but i surely can’t say “i hate everyone with green hair. Let’s kill them!” Is that concept really so hard to grasp?