this post was submitted on 05 Aug 2023
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I may disagree with what you have to say, but I shall fight to the death to defend your right to say it.
When you ban people, you tell them to go form an echo chamber where they'll flourish.
A more intelligent approach is to imitate Daryl Davis, who has convinced hundreds of KKK members to leave the KKK, simply by respectfully talking with them.
You might actually learn a thing or two in the process.
For every Daryl Davis who can successfully talk down 100 Klansmen, you'll find 100 Black people begging for their lives trying to reason with the Klan in their last moments. For every thought of "I can fix them!" that you may have, you have to weigh that against how many more people you'll need to fix if you platform their ideas and treat them as something worth "respectfully debating".
Convincing people to leave hate groups is a great thing to do, but if respectful debate were effective on the large scale, and we have no shortage of people respectfully arguing that hate is a bad thing, why is the far right a bigger threat now than it was ten years ago? Do not tolerate the intolerant, do not debate the undebatable, do not respect the unrespectable.
The "far right" is growing because the left keeps moving further left, and normal people realize they're now considered conservative.
If you want an echo chamber, go on and kick me out. You reap what you sow.
You sound like you've never argued with fascists online.
They only exist in echo chambers, anyway, and do not debate in good faith. There is nothing similar to what Daryl Davis did except in the most superficial way possible. Go visit /r/conservative and you might actually learn a thing or two.
I was active in r/Conservative, and here I'm the primary contributer to m/Conservative. Hi, nice to meet you. When I'm engaged in arguments involving the word "fascist", it's rarely me using that word (unless we're literally discussing Mussolini), and usually me who's called that for favoring levelheaded conservative principles. I enjoy mutually respectful debate, but I find most others prefer to fearfully call me a "fascist," downvote everything I've ever written, block me, and walk away feeling sanctimonious.
You're confusing that "Voltaire" quote (which wasn't actually said by him) with the American First Amendment.
The American First Amendment is predicated on America's cultural basis in the principle of free speech, which is embodied by the quote. The American First Amendment indeed applies only to government, restricting its overreach. But the principle of free speech is one of the core principles of American culture. It goes far deeper than the First Amendment.
If you don't want to debate with them then don't subscribe to their magazine, and leave them alone.
I find it interesting that, at the heart of our differences, is a disagreement over the nature of the internet itself — whether it's public or private, more like a town square or more like our own living rooms. If you go back to the '90s, when the Web was nascent, I think technologists would have been surprised to learn that the issue is still so unsettled in 2023. I suppose it's a tough issue to settle. Ultimately, neither of our traditional notions of "public" and "private" fit it well.
We agree that people who want us dead should not be invited into our living rooms. My position is that by surfing kbin we are putting ourselves in the middle of a town square, and opening ourselves up to any and all perspectives, disagreeable as they may be. As an American, my sentiment is "bring it on."
The internet is public, go register a domain for hate speech, or "free speech" as some call it.
Websites are private property and do have moderation.
I have mixed feelings about this
On one hand, Daryl Davis is a hero, and his method actually works to de-radicalize people. I prefer using this method when I encounter bigots irl.
On the other hand, allowing bigoted speech in your online platform has the potential to drive away normal folks and turn your platform into the echo-chamber where bigotry flourishes that you mentioned. This is basically what happened to Voat.
I agree with this, but it's beside the point. This isn't a public space like a street corner, it's a managed public/private space like a bar, where the bouncer will kick you out for abusing other patrons.
A group of patrons sitting at a table in a bar, quietly discussing their TERF perspective, is entirely different from one of them walking up to a trans table and picking a fight. The former is an exercise of free speech, whereas the latter is cause for ejection.
No. You don't have the right to debate other people's right to exist. Such speech is an act of violence and should be treated as such.
I don't want a group of people sitting around "discussing" whether or not black people are inherently inferior either. That is not speech we should accept in the public sphere
Have you never heard "sticks and stones may break my bones, but names can never hurt me"? It's preschool 101. Speech is never an act of violence.
Additionally, nobody is debating anyone's right to exist.
Says the person who's never heard their own right to exist or the rights of their loved ones called into question publicly.
You don't have the right to "debate" other people's equal rights.
Except really, nobody's ever debating anyone's right to exist. That's absurd.
Consider this: If a mass murderer was captured and imprisoned, he could claim that the justice system opposes his right to exist. The trouble with that is he'd be completely incorrect. The justice system opposes his behavior of murder. No matter how much he believes his very existence is inextricably bound to his behavior of murder, the reality is he murders by choice, and it is that intentional action which the justice system opposes.
Did you just compare trans people living their lives without hurting anyone to murder?
Except it’s more like a group of patrons at a bar talking about killing a trans person, and than the next day one of them actually does it.
What kind of absurd hyperbole is that? Nobody has called for murder. And certainly nobody has committed a murder based on a call for it.
Speech has real life consequences.
"Known transgender killings increased 93% in that four-year period -- from 29 in 2017 to 56 in 2021"
https://abcnews.go.com/US/homicide-rate-trans-people-doubled-gun-killings-fueling/story?id=91348274
"Transgender people over four times more likely than cisgender people to be victims of violent crime"
https://williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu/press/ncvs-trans-press-release/
I don't condone murder under any circumstances. But using 56 murders as an excuse to silence anyone online is a disgrace to the principle of free speech.
The principle of free speech, in America, has nothing to do with forcing people to tolerate hateful rhetoric. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_speech_in_the_United_States.
As long as the government isn't arresting you for your opinions then nothing going on here has to do with "free speech". Individuals and corporations silencing you online is not a "disgrace to the principle of free speech".
You're conflating the principle of free speech with the US 1st Amendment. The 1st Amendment is predicated on the principle of free speech. The 1st Amendment is completely inapplicable here. The principle of free speech is 100% applicable here, as it is foundational to western civilization.
the principles of free speech do not guarantee you a platform upon which to spread hatred. They do not give you the right to force others to serve your positions over the internet.
there might be something to be said about "platform neutrality," but it's still a competition of rights that doesn't really justify forcing a platform—especially a small platform like kbin—to host content it views as extremist, or especially likely to result in violence. Maybe you can argue that we should have higher scrutiny in the case of a monopoly or similar large social network due to the power of strong network effects, but... I don't know how much scrutiny would you need to apply to say "aha, this company is banning terfs for insidious reasons!" no, they're obviously banning terfs because their bigotry is dangerous and hurtful and giving them a platform just feels incredibly shitty.
A while back, I thought—well, I still do think—that platform neutrality should be used to frame the issue of large social media sites that ban talk about their competitors, like when Twitter deprioritized Substack (facebook messenger has banned competitors as well). I'd also argue this principle could be used to ban, for example, Facebook from manipulating its algorithm overtly (expliciltly, specifically) to favor a particular political party or an advertiser (outside of the ad itself—that one is already illegal, ads need to be disclosed as ads). But applying such a rule to general political standards and where you think the norm or neutral position should be is dangerous and stupid.
You're talking about a "free speech" that only exists in /r/conservative echo chambers. You are free to say what you want but you are not free from the consequences. We do not have to listen. And it's not a "disgrace" that nobody cares to hear what you have to say.
Up until a few years ago, it was widely held by people of all political persuasions to be one of the foundations of western civilization. As the far left has moved progressively further leftward, they abandoned it. The only reason you think of it as conservative is because it's old-fashioned.
. You can't just make shit up.This is only exists in your echo chambers.
Wait, do you actually disagree with that? I thought that was common knowledge. If you don't mind my asking, which age-group are you in? (If you decline to state for anonymity, I understand. I just find this baffling. It's indisputably true in my personal, anecdotal, life experience.)
So you made it up? You can't state things as fact based on your personal observations from your echo chamber.
I could have guessed that. Your perspective seems very insular.
I could probably go out and search for a million random people who've experienced it too (like everyone older than 30), and some articles about it. But I said what I know to be true based not on having read it anywhere, but rather on what I've personally experienced over quite a few decades of life in America.
Right, no sources, just your personal experience. The hallmark of the "American conservative". Facts be damned.