Lately, there’s been a lot of talk about “free speech.” With news that petulant man-child and richest man on the planet Elon Musk is planning to purchase Twitter, take the company private, and turn it into a haven for “free speech.” Sounds good, right? We all love free speech, yeah? Yeah.
I did not have any idea that the Times editorial board, of all people, said that free speech is the right of people “to speak their minds and voice their opinions in public without fear of being shamed or shunned". That's actually the exact opposite of free speech.
Right? It’s honestly amazing how incorrect that piece was. And I get that they were trying to make an argument about people “self-censoring,” but as soon as you introduce the argument that people should be allowed to say whatever they want without getting judged by others, you’re advocating *against* speech.
All of us who used the internet pre-2000 should remember what unmoderated forums looked like. It was godawful--a relatively small number of awful people could pretty quickly drive out the "good" users and ruin an otherwise useful forum. It wasn't even that long ago, so I'm not sure why the techbros need to relearn that lesson.
That's close to a quarter century ago at this point and I suspect that a lot of the worst of 4chan etc comes from folks who weren't even born then... And, yes, I agree with you about unmoderated forums: many Usenet groups I was part of during the '90s slowly drowned in a torrent of new users getting online who paid no attention to group etiquette and swamped the groups with drivel :(
The irony of conservatives complaining about free speech while every conservative site will ban you for the slightest deviance from orthodoxy isn't a bug, it's a feature.
And this isn’t even the worst stuff.... For many (usually white men) free speech means the ability and license to attack, demean, shame and destroy those who are weaker or have less influence than they do. In other words, women, trans, minorities.
I almost never have to block anyone on any social media, because I'm a straight white guy, but having seen what ends up in other people's inboxes...
...there is a reason one of my "I hit the lotto?" dreams is to run a service that sends people to knock on the door on Thanksgiving and read out for people's families the harassing DMs they send people. Or put a billboard across from their front lawn with screenshots.
I just wanted to say I'm sending positive thoughts and hope you are able to find some relaxation to purge the garbage you had to consume to write this. I think it's important people know what that the Internet gets much worse than facebook.
I did not have any idea that the Times editorial board, of all people, said that free speech is the right of people “to speak their minds and voice their opinions in public without fear of being shamed or shunned". That's actually the exact opposite of free speech.
Right? It’s honestly amazing how incorrect that piece was. And I get that they were trying to make an argument about people “self-censoring,” but as soon as you introduce the argument that people should be allowed to say whatever they want without getting judged by others, you’re advocating *against* speech.
It amazes me how few people who opine about "free speech" are familiar with how the "marketplace of ideas" is supposed to work.
All of us who used the internet pre-2000 should remember what unmoderated forums looked like. It was godawful--a relatively small number of awful people could pretty quickly drive out the "good" users and ruin an otherwise useful forum. It wasn't even that long ago, so I'm not sure why the techbros need to relearn that lesson.
That's close to a quarter century ago at this point and I suspect that a lot of the worst of 4chan etc comes from folks who weren't even born then... And, yes, I agree with you about unmoderated forums: many Usenet groups I was part of during the '90s slowly drowned in a torrent of new users getting online who paid no attention to group etiquette and swamped the groups with drivel :(
The irony of conservatives complaining about free speech while every conservative site will ban you for the slightest deviance from orthodoxy isn't a bug, it's a feature.
And this isn’t even the worst stuff.... For many (usually white men) free speech means the ability and license to attack, demean, shame and destroy those who are weaker or have less influence than they do. In other words, women, trans, minorities.
And to overload anyone who dares try to carve out spaces online where they won't get treated like crap.
Yeah. Another big talking point I saw on there was from people arguing that Twitter should get rid of the ability to block accounts. So... that's fun.
I almost never have to block anyone on any social media, because I'm a straight white guy, but having seen what ends up in other people's inboxes...
...there is a reason one of my "I hit the lotto?" dreams is to run a service that sends people to knock on the door on Thanksgiving and read out for people's families the harassing DMs they send people. Or put a billboard across from their front lawn with screenshots.
Le sigh…not looking forward to where things are going
Same
I wonder if 4chan Musk is doing this to get right-wingers to buy his cars and stop with the “rolling coal” and “ICE-ing” protests.
I just wanted to say I'm sending positive thoughts and hope you are able to find some relaxation to purge the garbage you had to consume to write this. I think it's important people know what that the Internet gets much worse than facebook.