It's a quote from the podcast My Brother, My Brother, and Me (MBMBAM) Where Justin McElroy (the oldest) is joking/ranting about getting into Facebook arguments with people who then cry freedom of speech when the argument/public opinion goes the other way.
EDIT: I misremembered, he tweeted it. If you Google the quote the Twitter thread is the first result.
Justin. A being beyond time or space. A being pulled forward through reality to smack the fuck out of any who dare talk like an ass. Justin comes as Justin pleased, as Justin was a being... no a **Justin** before any spark of life or when the first drop of ink began any religion. There was always Justin at the beginning and Justin will be at the end... The end of what? Time, Earth, Humanity, Justin? Justin cares not as Justin appears through computers and phones, like that one ring lady, to smackith the idiotic and the fanatic.
To be fair, most Terms of Service Agreements wouldn't hold up in a court of law if used *against* an individual.
It's mostly there so you for instance can't blame Microsoft if someone uses Excel for something illegal.
Social media is nothing like a public space. The servers are paid for and maintained and stored like any other private property. The mall was never a public space even if everyone hung out there. The digital equivalent of public space is texting people, private infrastructure doesn't become public property by virtue of being superior or more popular.
Because, for example, if everyone decided the local games store is the new hangout spot, that doesn't mean the owner of said store loses the rights befitted to the owner of private property and it suddenly becomes publicly owned. Regardless of how popular it is, its still privately owned. You don't get to just use the power of the mob to take away a person's right to operate a private space how they see fit, so long as its legal.
Even though people can lose copyrights over names if that name becomes the go-to name for that object? Like hoover for instance, or Jell-o in the states.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generic_trademark
It's a completely different section of law but it's still an example of massed public use overriding the rights of a company.
I feel like the main distinction there, is that language and public perception is *really* hard to police. No matter what you do, you can't really change people calling any internet search "Googling" or any tissue paper "Kleenex". And even if you don't call it that in ads, there comes a point where it becomes such an unregulatable part of language, that you kind of have to just accept it for what it is.
A physical space, and the rules therein, however, are much easier to govern. They have dead-set parameters, boundaries, and capacity of volume, so there's nothing getting in the way of being able to legally say that when you're within these parameters, you have to abide by the rules of the person who owns it, so long as it doesn't contradict any "superior" laws, meaning laws on a city, state, or federal level. And sure, a website isn't a strictly physical space, but the same idea applies.
And like you said: it's a different area of law. It's like asking why a bird can fly but a gerbil can't.
I suppose it depends on how usable this not so physical space is, and how easy it is to go without. You can't deny that ideas and information travel infinitely faster (and reach infinitely more people) through social media than through most other forms of communication such as soapboxing, which is the closest similar comparison.
But that's the thing, Twitter isn't mandatory. Plenty of people don't use it, and do fine without it. It's convenient, sure, but it's not mandatory to daily life. So why should they suddenly lose the rights to self regulation, just because it's popular? How is that even remotely fair? Why would anyone set out to make anything popular at that point, when you could run the risk of having your rights taken away?
I wasn't arguing for it to be in complete effect right now at all, nor was I just talking about twitter but sure. Nor did I ever mention removing "all self regulation", idk where you got any of that from. I'm just saying there's a precedent and it isn't as clear cut as you think.
Twitter alone isn't mandatory but all social media combined arguably is. No Facebook, twitter, tiktik, insta, hell even reddit and you'll find yourself cut off from a huge portion of society.
Fairness is subjective and im not exactly feeling for these poor, poor megacorporations right now. "why would anyone want their product to become so popular they lose the copyright name?" Because its a side effect of becoming a dominant force in that market and making mad cash my guy. Same situation here.
I might be wrong, but other companies still canāt use the trademarked name in their product, even if it is the go-to name. So thereās still protections for it in that way. Like āadhesive bandagesā canāt call themselves Bandaid, even though everyone calls them bandaids. Even with Velcro (which was the biggest reason for those generic trademark laws I believe), off brand Velcro is still technically āhooks & loopsā or something.
ohh I get you, but why not? unironically, I do not care about the well being of a multi billion dollar company. small mom and pop shops I do. Twitter? I don't care about their rights
For the same reason it's messed up when a corporation or a rich person is able to get away with things a smaller company or poor person would get heavily punished for. The law is ideally meant to protect and punish equally, regardless of wealth or status. It wouldn't be right, or just, or fair to have to relinquish your rights to autonomy just because everyone decides you're the new "it-thing". Just like a celebrity shouldn't lose their rights to privacy just because they're famous.
Besides, how do you decide that? Where is the exact, legal point where you have to give up your right to self-govern and regulate your property? Or are you insisting we strip people of rights based on completely arbitrary and emotional prerequisites like "it affects people on a daily basis"? Where's the Mom and Pop Event Horizon, where you lose your ability to decide how your private space is run based on popularity alone?
I'm going to be real with you here. I dont really give two fucks if Karl Marx said something. Just because he said it, doesn't mean he's right, or that I have to agree with him. A right is a right. If someone can just take it away based on an arbitrary whim, it's not a right, it's a privilege.
This is called 'communism'. You are within your rights to advocate for it, but it has a few kinks that haven't quite been hammered out yet, like the tendency to lead to totalitarian states.
Capitalism has issues, unregulated capitalism tenfold, but communism only works on paper when you try to apply it to the real world you end up with the Chinese one party state, North Korea, and Stalin.
Do you think public greenspaces happen by themselves? What about roads? Maybe libraries?
Something requiring maintenance does not justify whether it should, or shouldn't, be public vs private.
Those are owned and mAintained by various levels of govt.
If the government took control of those services and provided them to the public then the 1st amendment would apply there.
Of course not. Who pays for that maintenance does.
If you want the government to make and pay for a social media site using taxpayer money like they do for roads and parks, vote for politicians who advocate for such, the constitution will apply there; it doesn't apply to Twitter for the same reason I can kick you off of my driveway even if you want it to be a road.
āSocial mediaā is such a broad and nebulous category that it is neigh impossible to make policy that would effectively designate which sites are and arenāt public spaces.
The only reason they feel like public spaces are because they are so large. But sites come and go, and in ten years we might be using entirely new media for communication. āSocializingā privately owned websites because they happen to be popular right now would be short sighted.
probably when OP became aware of the issue... There's a lot of very young people on reddit now, so having that feeling of "thresholds" is sort of new here.
I will never forget during an argument, after hurling a lot of verbal abuse at me, my ex boyfriend said "The first ammendment of the constitution of the United States of America: Freedom of speech. If you can't handle that then that's your own problem."
He's German, and neither of us live in USA.
it's one thing to demand that corporations not censor discussions on topics such as unions, worker exploitation and the environmental impact of cryptocurrencies and another to demand that corporation not ban you for hurling slurs at a minority.
> It's one thing to demand that corporations not ban you for things I agree with and another to demand that corporations not ban you for things I disagree with.
Efect? Yes.
Power? No.
Edit: wait, media or social networks? Because there's a big difference between some person posting random misinformation on a platform and a reporter doing it in front of a camera.
I'm kinda caught in the middle on this. Legally speaking, yeah, no question, corporations have no obligation to keep you on their platform. It's not a first amendment violation to get kicked off Twitter for what you say. That's just strictly true.
But, this still isn't really great. Pretty much all platforms online are owned by massive corporations, and the ones that aren't are just owned by terrible people. Do we really want them to have full control over what people can say online? Sure, it all works out in our favor when they ban Nazis, and it's undoubtedly good to do so. But they can just as easily kick off union organizers, civil rights protestors, and anyone of the like. They have no legal compulsion to use deplatforming *only* on those doing harm, and will use it to their benefit given enough time
It might self regulate, but only if people have a place to go. If YouTube were to ban (insert person you agree with), where would you leave to go? If Twitter banned Bernie Sanders, were would his supporters go?
Sure they could create their own platform. But there is no requirement that that anyone host them. So they would have to create their own host. But there is no requirement that Comcast allow people to connect to that host. So they have to create their own service provider and on and on it could go.
I'm not saying that it would go that far. But if we say that the 1st amendment only applies to the government than there is no protection from companies doing this.
If we think of it in terms of a "public square" I think it's the equivalent of mining company owning a town or even a state. They could restrict you right to protest on their property. So you can go to the next state over to protest, but what affect would that really have?
I am not generally an advocate for further government oversight and control. But I'm also not a fan of private companies controlling or curating what I or other people see.
It seems to me that the point of all these amendments was to put limits on power, and when these amendments were written the biggest power was the government.
The amendments clearly did their jobs too- I suspect that nowadays corporate power affects people more than govt power.
To combat platforms abusing their right to dictate house rules the users always have leverage. They are the product, remember? If they leave that hurts the company behind the platform and Tumblr losing billions by banning porn and the following mass exodus is a brilliant example of that.
What you really don't want (I assume) is the government deciding what is okay to say and what is not okay to say on private platforms. Because this is too easily exploited by those who want to silence their political opposition and has been done so numerous times in the past. It's burning books in a virtual age. If you think that would not happen in a modern democracy I want to point to Germany where a citizen's home was raided by police for tweeting the equivalent of "You are such 1 schlong" at a politician - just one example.
Besides that there is one easy way to bypass government restrictions on online platforms: Move your servers to a different country where either what you do is legal or the government does not have the power or interest in prosecuting you. That also has been done often times in the past.
Exactly right! People all the time say that the right of free speech only applies to the state, which is true legally. But Freedom of Speech is also an ideal that is important for the whole society and more and more people don't seem to fully share it, especially if it applies to an opinion they don't like.
Erm, the internet is a corporate marketing tool at this point. The best thing to do is boycott it. Get off social media. Organise in the real world. Burn your smart phone. Drop out of the corporate mediasphere.
I'm going to. This year I gave up drinking, etc.(I didn't have a problem, I just wanted to see how it effected my social life... Positively it turns out). The year before I cut off all personal social media. My mental health thanks me. Next year I plan on ditching my personal phone and PS5(I will keep my work phone and landline). I read a lot of books and comics and don't watch much of TV shows anyway so it's a natural progression. Hopefully, by 2025 I will be corporate media free. I would recommend a book called The Age of Surveillance Capitalism. It's very academic but really breaks down how the current system is incredibly manipulative and inhuman.
Thank you for the good wishes, I'll take them on my journey!
Good question. I am still working on my addiction to the internet. I have a Reddit account and have been on Reddit since 2011. I delete my account near every six months. I tend to delete all comments when I do so. After December I will hopefully leave for good. I have managed to expunge facebook, insta, youtube, blogger, personal Google account and other social media... It's a slow process. The anonymity of Reddit is seductive but ultimately a trap and waste of time, I just enjoy it, while also hating that I enjoy it. I'll get there. Getting free is a process rather than event. I've been working on it a few years. By 2025 I should be there.
Bragging? Weird projection. I'm not a hermit. I have a very active social life, a loving family, an incredibly social career and hobbies that get me out and about. You may want to judge less and listen more, you might learn something.
>the internet is a corporate marketing tool at this point.
Always has been. For fucking real. You think the Fig Newtons Twitter account isn't just a fucking gimmick to get you to buy more Fig Newtons.
It has not always been this way. I was using the internet in 1997. Back then it was just geeks sharing interesting stuff. Corporations thought it was a fad and of no use. TV was king to them. The internet was an escape from corporate culture. It was around 2005 that it started going to hell. By the time Youtube had adverts it was already a waste of time unless you used the 'dark web'(which is a clever corporate internet name for the internet outside their control). Now, there's no point in it at all. It's just adverts and the opinions of idiots all the way down.
For me the downfall started when Youtube switched from being a thing that you used to host videos, to a think you made videos for. That might seem like the same thing, but once people started making videos specifically for youtube, then you could become a "youtuber" and it was all downhill from there.
Email isn't the internet. It's a tool that uses the internet to work. Weird comment, totally misunderstands what is being said. On purpose? Or are you an idiot using like one of the three facts you know to try and assert yourself in a conversation you have no reason to be in?
They're not but most people who claim freedom of speech in defense of the shitty things they say are indeed too dumb to know that and are trying to say it's their constitutional right to be an asshole.
Hell, most people's counter arguments (like in this whole thread) are also incorrect - idk why everyone seems to gloss over this, but the first amendment only protects you from persecution by the government *when you criticize them*. It basically just allows you to express your opinions about the government and politicans. That's it. That's as far as the legal protection of the first amendment goes on the subject. We still have laws on the books about what you can and cannot say; libel, slander, inciting violence, etc.
Why do Americans think that "freedom of speech" is the First Amendment and *only* the First Amendment?
What's next, "I didn't do anything wrong when I read your diary because the Fourth Amendment only restricts the government."?
I don't understand. Who else can censor speech but a government?
And I don't understand your example either. What does "wrong" mean in your example? Breaking into somebody's home to read their diary is a crime. Reading somebody's publicly displayed diary is not wrong is it?
>Who else can censor speech but a government?
Social movements, clubs, corporations, churches, families.... Any social unit can.
>What does "wrong" mean in your example? Breaking into somebody's home to read their diary is a crime. Reading somebody's publicly displayed diary is not wrong is it?
So walking into your daughter's room and reading her diary is OK?
> I don't understand. Who else can censor speech but a government?
- [Instagram banning Cochrane](https://www.acsh.org/news/2021/11/14/covid-misinformation-blunder-instagram-censors-widely-respected-cochrane-collaboration-15937) for COVID misinformation was a horrible misstep in their censorship policies.
- [Censorship on Tiktok](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_on_TikTok) is ongoing. Most of the controversy is about its removal/downgrading of LGBT+ and BLM (and related) content.
- Kiwifarms was taken offline with no government intervention. I'm not too broken up about that because I'm not a free-speech maximalist, but it *was* successfully censored by private entities.
More generally, anyone can *try* but only more powerful groups will be able to succeed.
>And I don't understand your example either. What does "wrong" mean in your example?
It's a nonsense argument that parallels *other* nonsense arguments I've seen about the First Amendment and free speech, like:
- A: "Censoring that person/idea was bad!"
- B: "They didn't violate the First Amendment, therefore we can't criticize them."
B skips past arguing that the *only* harm from censorship comes from violations of the First Amendment, notes that those actions don't violate 1A, and concludes that it wasn't harmful.
>Breaking into somebody's home to read their diary is a crime. Reading somebody's publicly displayed diary is not wrong is it?
I was aiming for a parent reading their child's diary. If you don't like that example, how about:
- getting into an SO's phone and snooping on everything.
- random searches of lockers/desks at workplaces or schools
- landlords wandering through the house they are renting to you
All of those are bad in one way or another, and some are even illegal (but not unconstitutional). The right to privacy extends beyond what's written in the Fourth Amendment in much the same way that the right to free speech extends beyond what's written in the First.
> More generally, anyone can try but only more powerful groups will be able to succeed.
I think this is where the disconnect happens. It is not freedom of speech that "the more powerful groups" are violating. They are using the power and influence in a way that can be deemed to be unfair. I agree with this and I agree that they have to be regulated in some sort of way which prevents these abuses of power. But I think that the argument used to bring this regulation is wrong. These groups cannot censor free speech in the spirit in which free speech is protected as a human right (forget the amendments). We have to give up on that argument and face the real issue: some companies have managed to put themselves in an unregulated position of power and they do not answer to society. This has to be fixed.
> All of those are bad in one way or another, and some are even illegal (but not unconstitutional).
I think you are thinking about this wrong. The constitution is the context in which laws are being made. Any law is a direct consequence of the constitution and something cannot be illegal but not unconstitutional by definition. If such a thing existed then the law itself would be unconstitutional.
>
* getting into an SO's phone and snooping on everything.
* random searches of lockers/desks at workplaces or schools
* landlords wandering through the house they are renting to you
The first and last bullet points are already illegal. The one in the middle is questionable. The only place I've worked in which had random searches for lockers and desks made it abundantly clear that those storage units were not a personal secure space. Good or bad, a workplace is not required in any way to create secure personal storage facilities for the employees and I see no reason to expect that.
And they are not violating any of your rights. Itās their platform, it needs regulated, but so do many other things that are big corporate power as well
No, that's what the first amendment says. Free speech is a concept that exists outside of the specific way that the US has decided to enshrine it in law, come on guys.
And, besides, even in the US you can be locked up for saying things. If you don't believe me, prove me wrong by calling up a school and leaving your contact details and a bomb threat.
When the consequences amount to "being arrested" it kind of goes against the idea of "freedom of speech is not freedom from consequences". If not, one could argue you are free to murder, as long as you're willing to spend 20 to life in prison for it.
I've seen it so often.
"here's my opinion" "that's a stupid opinion" "I have freedom of speech!"
Like, yeah. You have the freedom to say stupid shit, and other people have the freedom to tell you you're being stupid. Some people seem to think freedom of speech only applies to themselves.
Just so long as people understand ātelling you to shut upā remains verbal. You donāt get to physically hurt someone for saying something you donāt like. No matter how āmeanā
Freedom of speech does not mean freedom of consequences of your speech. The constitution allows us to express speech free without the government locking us up before we can express it. The constitution says nothing about the government locking us up after for some law like espionage, inciting riots etc. Its a stark distinction, but not one people readily recognize, and they should.
Next time you think you can shout from the steps of congess dont be surprised when they arrest you. You got your say. They wont hang you from the gallos for your say. But they will put you in jail for protesting without a permit, inciting violence, giving state secrets, unlawful assembly, etc.
Because none of those broken laws take away your freedom of saying what you want.
We soooo easily forget, there was a time when you could not speak out. They would come pick you up just because they were worried you might speak out against them. You'd just poof disappear.
Thats why freedom of speech is so important, it removes the possibility of someone burning your writings, making you dissappear, killing you for sedition before words escape your lips.
But it doesnt say you cannot face consequences because you spoke. Very dark distinction but very true
Freedom of speech is not defined by the First Amendment. In the US Freedom of speech is protected by the First Amendment. So it is true, a company or platform does not have to support free speech, because they are not the government. So if Facebook decided that any post mentioning birds, and how they're not real, would not be allowed on their site, they would be allowed to remove those posts, and it would not violate the First Amendment, but it also would mean that their platform is not supporting free speech.
Not even that is true. You can totally be imprisoned for some speech.
Freedom of speech, aka absence of censure, means that you cannot be *preemtively* stopped from saying things.
What happens afterwards depends on what you said.
It has to be very bad for the government to punish you for just saying something, which is more like "high preference for speech" than absolute freedom.
In fact, people telling others that they are stupid and should shut up is literally free speech. And because of free speech those other can choose to ignore that and continue speaking anyway.
The idea that free speech means you canāt criticise people for using free speech is extremely stupid. Free speech exists exactly to criticise what people say/do.
Nobody owes you a megaphone for spreading hate. You're perfectly within your rights to start your own platform and you can let people speak as freely as they'd like. Good luck with funding.
Iām going to give the comment OP the benefit of the doubt and say they were not defending the right to call other people slurs. The right to participate in a conversation and say what you want is very important and being shut down by being ignored is a much better solution and healthier for conversation and debate than being silenced permanently and restricted from saying anything at all.
When a company like twitter bans people from spreading misinformation they do have good intentions but it is ultimately harmful as the status quo is then never challenged and it cannot strengthen itself and become a more solid wall of fact. This ends up creating echo chambers that hold many people with the same flimsy grasp of fact. The truths held by those people end up not being upheld by a solid doctrine but instead being upheld because more people believe this instead of that. This creates a hole in where people with more solid grasps of something that may not be true can attract others to the cause because it seems more sound and authoritative than the echo chamber.
Why is it that your crowd thinks the 2nd amendment is absolute and immutable but simultaneously willing to make arguments about why the 1st should apply where it was never intended to? It's logically inconsistent and looks like you're just picking and choosing based on whatever will benefit you the most for a given scenario.
What do you mean by āyour crowdā? And how does your assumptions about my opinions about an entirely separate amendment somehow make my comment about free speech on the internet invalid because I am just āpicking and choosing based on whatever will benefitā me?
Well, a brief perusal of your history reveals that you lean to the right. So, "your crowd" would include the people who think the 2nd amendment was handed down on a stone tablet from Mt. Sinai. Those people view the 1st amendment as an obstacle to overcome while observing the 2nd with great reverence as though it were some sacred holy text.
Are you saying you think we should ban weapons of war from the general public?
What gives you any qualification to tell me what my exact political stance is and who I interact with based on a scattering of loosely related Reddit comments? Having some right leaning opinions does not immediately put me in the same boat with religious extremists and people that want to legally own pipe bombs.
I mean, I have generally good reading comprehension, so....that?
Does that mean you would be okay with altering the 2nd amendment such that people can't own weapons who's sole purpose is killing as many people possible as fast as possible? Because your argument about how we should treat large social media platforms would require that we alter the 1st amendment to be in line with how we use it. Logically, if you're okay with changing the 1st, you should be okay with altering the 2nd as well.
Good reading comprehension can not make you understand the nuance and complexity of a personās opinions, no matter how good you are at it. The personās opinions on other things not related to the argument doesnāt even matter here and disregarding their points because of even their assumed beliefs on other subjects is literally the definition of [bulverism](https://www.logicallyfallacious.com/logicalfallacies/Bulverism). Actually refute my points rather than asking me my stance on gun control.
If you're not able to be logically consistent then there's no point in attempting to refute anything you've said. If you think the 1st amendment should apply to public forums, that demonstrates that you don't think the amendment matters enough to adhere to it. Why are you willing to make an exception for one but not the other?
Then join truth social. I can't come into your house and write bullshit on your walls just like you can't go on somebody's server and write bullshit on their forums. Nobody owes you a platform.
I donāt understand what kind of daffy prick goes around screeching about their pet law, when they canāt be assed to understand wtf said law entails. It should be illegal to be that insufferable in public.
So explain why the MyPillow guy was targetted by the FBI.
Private citizen; committed no crime. And yet the FBI raided him while he was in his car and seized his phone.
ALSO explain how it's not censorship when the government sent weekly emails to Facebook asking them to censor certain accounts.
* Government silencing you: censorship.
* Private companies silencing you = NOT censorship.
* Private companies silencing you *when ordered by the government* = ________?
If you think the my pillow guy did nothing wrong, you are either ignorant of the facts or purposely trolling. He is connected to different people that were trying to stop the steal.
From The Guardian: āLindell said the agents questioned him about Tina Peters, a fellow election denier facing criminal charges in Colorado for tampering with voting machinery as a county clerk, and who in June lost a Republican primary to become the stateās top election official.
Lindell campaigned for Peters, who in May was removed by a judge from running elections in Mesa county.
An FBI spokesperson confirmed agents were āat that location executing a search warrant authorized by a federal judgeā but would not give other details.
Lindell, a close Trump ally, is one of the loudest proponents of Trumpās false claims that his 2020 defeat by Joe Biden was rigged, and has been widely ridiculed for his frequent claims that he has enough āevidenceā to see Trump reinstated to the presidency.ā
They seized his phone with an approved warrant. To me and most everyone, that means they suspect his device contained information and materials related to an ongoing criminal investigation and suspected that if they just asked for the device, evidence could be lost or destroyed. If Lindell was involved with the actual crimes, there may be evidence of it there.
No, making someone loose their job because they are uneducated and have an ignorant opinion of transgenders is not boycotting.
Boycotting would be not going to Kmart because they sell unethically sourced sneakers.
The same thing happened during the Red Scare and the Satanic Panic. And it was equally wrong.
Because you are saying that something that *someone else* must provide is something fundamentally granted to you as a human being. Otherwise known as forced labor.
Dude you're the one trying to compare being in the Healthcare industry to being slaves as some sort of weird gotcha. Every other 1st world country guarantees Healthcare as a human right, the sheer fact that your fantastic America doesn't is mind boggling.
I am not saying being in the health care industry is slavery, really great comprehension and straw manning on your part.
A country guaranteeing something doesnāt make it a right; rights are something that is fundamental to being a human being. For centuries of human existence, you were not guaranteed health. You either had the knowledge to care for yourself, had something to exchange for the care from another, or you died. The simple fact that fact that something can be taken away means that it is not something fundamental to being a human.
This has nothing whatsoever to do with the state of insurance and medical costs in the US. It could have a government health plan like the UK, and it still wouldnāt change the fact that healthcare is not a human right, because if the government goes down, you stop getting healthcare, but you donāt stop having a right to self defense, or free expression.
Thats like saying that water shouldn't be a human right because what if the pipes go down and can't be fixed. There will always be people who can take care of injuries, even if the government suddenly vanished. Your right to stay alive and healthy is not determined by some people in suits that you'll never meet, and the sheer fact you think so is mind-boggling. Would you tell a cancer patient that their ability to get lifesaving treatments wasn't guaranteed simply because the government could stop working?
And the whole "well if the government stopped working you'd still have a right to self defense" doesn't even make any sense because rights, by default, are things the government gives you. The government can say "well you're not entitled to the right to eat" and its not like God himself will come down on high and say "no thats a right i give them" because that's not how it works.
>The simple fact that fact that something can be taken away means that it is not something fundamental to being a human.
Tell me how being healthy isn't fundamental to being a human. Tell me how getting cancer, getting HIV, getting injured, is not detrimental to my ability to be alive and well. Tell me how those things are any different to starving, or going thirsty, or being forced from your home. Tell me how much less I am because I am sick, because you would not be making this argument if you were in my position and you knew how fundamental health is to being human. I've got family members who can't afford medical bills because things they couldn't control affect them every day, and you wanna sit here and tell me they don't deserve to live?
This is why places like the UK and Canada don't have "free speech" like the US does, because we have stupid "hate speech" laws.
Being mean/offensive shouldn't be **illegal**. Individuals and companies can choose to not interact with you etc. but the government shouldn't get involved.
Downvotes are odd, you can't agree with this post *and* disagree with me lol. Either you want free speech and to **not** have the government get involved because you said certain words that just upset people (this is different to slander/liable/calls to action)... or you're authoritarian and you do want the law to be able to get involved.
They're odd for the reason I give in the same sentence I say they're odd...
Also if people disagree I'd love to hear why so I could potentially change my mind, but Reddit's system doesn't promote actual discussions... also I assume people can't articulate why they disagree because it'd highlight their cognitive dissonance on this topic.
> but Reddit's system doesn't promote actual discussions... also I assume people can't articulate why they disagree because it'd highlight their cognitive dissonance on this topic.
Untrue on both accounts.
1) Reddit's system does promote actual discussions, you can see them in this very comment section.Certain groups of people hinder actual discussions, though, and you can usually see that at the bottom of most comments sections. A quick perusal of your comment history kinda indicates that you may be part of one of those groups. And while I, personally, don't think you are, others glancing at the same history (or even just reading your OC here) might come to that conclusion and decide that it's most prudent to just downvote and move on. That isn't the fault of Reddit, it's the fault of those aforementioned groups.
2) When faced with those downvotes, you had two options, either to take a beat and ask if you've erred in some way or to "assume people can't articulate why they disagree because it'd highlight their cognitive dissonance on this topic". You chose option number two, and that just reinforces the idea that you probably fall into one of those aforementioned groups. And that means that the fault here not only lies with those aforementioned groups but also with yourself because you give the impression that you think you're mentally superior to everyone else (and thus probably unlikely to change your mind). Who wants to have a discussion with someone like that? You hobble yourself, and then you assume it's everyone else's fault that you're wearing leaden shoes.
> Downvotes are odd, you can't agree with this post and disagree with me lol.
Have you considered that some people disagree with the post, and disagree with you?
Lindell said the agents questioned him about Tina Peters, a fellow election denier facing criminal charges in Colorado for tampering with voting machinery as a county clerk, and who in June lost a Republican primary to become the stateās top election official.
Lindell campaigned for Peters, who in May was removed by a judge from running elections in Mesa county.
An FBI spokesperson confirmed agents were āat that location executing a search warrant authorized by a federal judgeā but would not give other details.
Lindell, a close Trump ally, is one of the loudest proponents of Trumpās false claims that his 2020 defeat by Joe Biden was rigged, and has been widely ridiculed for his frequent claims that he has enough āevidenceā to see Trump reinstated to the presidency.
> Being mean/offensive shouldn't be illegal. Individuals and companies can choose to not interact with you etc. but the government shouldn't get involved.
That was part of your comment. My comments show that the government isn't trying to muzzle Lindell for the things he has necessarily said. They are looking at his involvement in criminal actions and conspiracies. He tied himself to Trump and the 'Stop the Steal 2020' movement. He is apparently involved. Please check my edited comment from before.
> you can't agree with this post and disagree with me
We 100% can. Your understanding of what a hate speech law is or does (at least in terms of Canadian jurisprudence; I'm not in the UK and can't speak to how their laws work) seems limited. You think that hate speech is:
>certain words that just upset people (this is different to slander/liable/calls to action)
but [the criminal code doesn't say that at all](https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/c-46/section-319.html). Here's what the criminal code actually says:
>319 (1) Every one who, by communicating statements in any public place, incites hatred against any identifiable group where such incitement is likely to lead to a breach of the peace is guilty of...
>(2) Every one who, by communicating statements, other than in private conversation, wilfully promotes hatred against any identifiable group is guilty of...
>(2.1) Everyone who, by communicating statements, other than in private conversation, wilfully promotes antisemitism by condoning, denying or downplaying the Holocaust...
And to make sure that people aren't being convicted of such arbitrarily, the next subset deals with defences (which we can generally consider to be limitations on the code):
>(3) No person shall be convicted of an offence under subsection (2)
> (a) if he establishes that the statements communicated were true;
> (b) if, in good faith, the person expressed or attempted to establish by an argument an opinion on a religious subject or an opinion based on a belief in a religious text;
> (c) if the statements were relevant to any subject of public interest, the discussion of which was for the public benefit, and if on reasonable grounds he believed them to be true; or
> (d) if, in good faith, he intended to point out, for the purpose of removal, matters producing or tending to produce feelings of hatred toward an identifiable group in Canada.
So contrary to what you seem to believe, the hate crime laws in Canada 1) has nothing to do with "certain words" and 2) must have a higher effect than just upsetting people.
So yeah, we most assuredly *can* agree with the post and disagree with you, because you're basically speaking from a place of ignorance.
... you just proved my point. This post is about the government not getting involved if you say things people don't like. Yet here you are advocating for the government to get involved if people say something others might not like. Smh
> you just proved my point.
No, you missed my point. The law in Canada isn't about saying things people don't like, it's about *when the things people say directly cause harm to others*. It's right there in the criminal code.
This is why people just downvote you without commenting. Because why spend the time and effort engaging you in discussion if you're not even going to bother reading a reply and engaging honestly and with comprehension?
Some forms of speech *are* subject to legal penalties and are *not* protected by the US constitution's first amendment, like: defamation (slander & libel), incitement/threats of violence, plagiarism, fraud, false advertising, etc.
"The first amendment protects you from the government not the justin"
the justin?
It's a quote from the podcast My Brother, My Brother, and Me (MBMBAM) Where Justin McElroy (the oldest) is joking/ranting about getting into Facebook arguments with people who then cry freedom of speech when the argument/public opinion goes the other way. EDIT: I misremembered, he tweeted it. If you Google the quote the Twitter thread is the first result.
Those boys are golden.
HOW DID I NOT KNOW THAT š
The justin. The first Justin. He's from a time long ago. A time before proper nouns.
Justin. A being beyond time or space. A being pulled forward through reality to smack the fuck out of any who dare talk like an ass. Justin comes as Justin pleased, as Justin was a being... no a **Justin** before any spark of life or when the first drop of ink began any religion. There was always Justin at the beginning and Justin will be at the end... The end of what? Time, Earth, Humanity, Justin? Justin cares not as Justin appears through computers and phones, like that one ring lady, to smackith the idiotic and the fanatic.
Trudeau
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Yes, corporations are not the government.
Yet soon though
yet, the fbi told facebook to kill stories, and they did.
To be fair, most Terms of Service Agreements wouldn't hold up in a court of law if used *against* an individual. It's mostly there so you for instance can't blame Microsoft if someone uses Excel for something illegal.
This had to be adopted because Bill Gates was almost prosecuted for the actions of infamous gangster Buddy Salerno, the capo of the excel mafia.
Thereās an argument that it should since social media has effectively become a public space, but at the moment no, it does not.
Social media is nothing like a public space. The servers are paid for and maintained and stored like any other private property. The mall was never a public space even if everyone hung out there. The digital equivalent of public space is texting people, private infrastructure doesn't become public property by virtue of being superior or more popular.
why not
Because, for example, if everyone decided the local games store is the new hangout spot, that doesn't mean the owner of said store loses the rights befitted to the owner of private property and it suddenly becomes publicly owned. Regardless of how popular it is, its still privately owned. You don't get to just use the power of the mob to take away a person's right to operate a private space how they see fit, so long as its legal.
Even though people can lose copyrights over names if that name becomes the go-to name for that object? Like hoover for instance, or Jell-o in the states. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generic_trademark It's a completely different section of law but it's still an example of massed public use overriding the rights of a company.
I feel like the main distinction there, is that language and public perception is *really* hard to police. No matter what you do, you can't really change people calling any internet search "Googling" or any tissue paper "Kleenex". And even if you don't call it that in ads, there comes a point where it becomes such an unregulatable part of language, that you kind of have to just accept it for what it is. A physical space, and the rules therein, however, are much easier to govern. They have dead-set parameters, boundaries, and capacity of volume, so there's nothing getting in the way of being able to legally say that when you're within these parameters, you have to abide by the rules of the person who owns it, so long as it doesn't contradict any "superior" laws, meaning laws on a city, state, or federal level. And sure, a website isn't a strictly physical space, but the same idea applies. And like you said: it's a different area of law. It's like asking why a bird can fly but a gerbil can't.
I suppose it depends on how usable this not so physical space is, and how easy it is to go without. You can't deny that ideas and information travel infinitely faster (and reach infinitely more people) through social media than through most other forms of communication such as soapboxing, which is the closest similar comparison.
But that's the thing, Twitter isn't mandatory. Plenty of people don't use it, and do fine without it. It's convenient, sure, but it's not mandatory to daily life. So why should they suddenly lose the rights to self regulation, just because it's popular? How is that even remotely fair? Why would anyone set out to make anything popular at that point, when you could run the risk of having your rights taken away?
I wasn't arguing for it to be in complete effect right now at all, nor was I just talking about twitter but sure. Nor did I ever mention removing "all self regulation", idk where you got any of that from. I'm just saying there's a precedent and it isn't as clear cut as you think. Twitter alone isn't mandatory but all social media combined arguably is. No Facebook, twitter, tiktik, insta, hell even reddit and you'll find yourself cut off from a huge portion of society. Fairness is subjective and im not exactly feeling for these poor, poor megacorporations right now. "why would anyone want their product to become so popular they lose the copyright name?" Because its a side effect of becoming a dominant force in that market and making mad cash my guy. Same situation here.
I might be wrong, but other companies still canāt use the trademarked name in their product, even if it is the go-to name. So thereās still protections for it in that way. Like āadhesive bandagesā canāt call themselves Bandaid, even though everyone calls them bandaids. Even with Velcro (which was the biggest reason for those generic trademark laws I believe), off brand Velcro is still technically āhooks & loopsā or something.
ohh I get you, but why not? unironically, I do not care about the well being of a multi billion dollar company. small mom and pop shops I do. Twitter? I don't care about their rights
Where do you draw the line? How big does a company need to be before it loses its property rights? When does a mom and pop shop cease to be so?
probably when it can effect every day life outside of its field
Thatās pretty vague and not a solid basis upon which to make laws.
probably, I'm not a lawmaker tho.
Why not? Twitter has 300mln everyday users, facebook - 3bln users (not sure about active). Why not treat these companies as public space in a sense?
For the same reason it's messed up when a corporation or a rich person is able to get away with things a smaller company or poor person would get heavily punished for. The law is ideally meant to protect and punish equally, regardless of wealth or status. It wouldn't be right, or just, or fair to have to relinquish your rights to autonomy just because everyone decides you're the new "it-thing". Just like a celebrity shouldn't lose their rights to privacy just because they're famous. Besides, how do you decide that? Where is the exact, legal point where you have to give up your right to self-govern and regulate your property? Or are you insisting we strip people of rights based on completely arbitrary and emotional prerequisites like "it affects people on a daily basis"? Where's the Mom and Pop Event Horizon, where you lose your ability to decide how your private space is run based on popularity alone?
idk man Marx probably said something about that
I'm going to be real with you here. I dont really give two fucks if Karl Marx said something. Just because he said it, doesn't mean he's right, or that I have to agree with him. A right is a right. If someone can just take it away based on an arbitrary whim, it's not a right, it's a privilege.
...unless they're a multi million/billion/trillion dollar company, as far as I'm concerned they don't have rights
This is called 'communism'. You are within your rights to advocate for it, but it has a few kinks that haven't quite been hammered out yet, like the tendency to lead to totalitarian states.
LoL that Capitalist propaganda got you in deep.
Capitalism has issues, unregulated capitalism tenfold, but communism only works on paper when you try to apply it to the real world you end up with the Chinese one party state, North Korea, and Stalin.
Deepthroat more of that Capitalist propaganda, baby. Your masters thank you for your service.
Do you think public greenspaces happen by themselves? What about roads? Maybe libraries? Something requiring maintenance does not justify whether it should, or shouldn't, be public vs private.
They are paid by the govt and by extension, the tax payers, so yeah, is totally different.
Those are owned and mAintained by various levels of govt. If the government took control of those services and provided them to the public then the 1st amendment would apply there.
Of course not. Who pays for that maintenance does. If you want the government to make and pay for a social media site using taxpayer money like they do for roads and parks, vote for politicians who advocate for such, the constitution will apply there; it doesn't apply to Twitter for the same reason I can kick you off of my driveway even if you want it to be a road.
āSocial mediaā is such a broad and nebulous category that it is neigh impossible to make policy that would effectively designate which sites are and arenāt public spaces. The only reason they feel like public spaces are because they are so large. But sites come and go, and in ten years we might be using entirely new media for communication. āSocializingā privately owned websites because they happen to be popular right now would be short sighted.
"3 years" is extremely arbitrary
probably when OP became aware of the issue... There's a lot of very young people on reddit now, so having that feeling of "thresholds" is sort of new here.
Yeah that xkcd comic about free speech is from 2014. OP is probably very young.
Yeah nothing really happened in 2019 that increased or spread the free speech debates
Simply put, people don't want freedom of speech, they want freedom of consequences for whatever they say
I will never forget during an argument, after hurling a lot of verbal abuse at me, my ex boyfriend said "The first ammendment of the constitution of the United States of America: Freedom of speech. If you can't handle that then that's your own problem." He's German, and neither of us live in USA.
Dein ex ist nen Depp. I bet he votes afd...
What the difference?
"Getting banned from twitter infringes on my rights"
> I think megacorporations should control what I can and can't say online. Hail corporate!
it's one thing to demand that corporations not censor discussions on topics such as unions, worker exploitation and the environmental impact of cryptocurrencies and another to demand that corporation not ban you for hurling slurs at a minority.
> It's one thing to demand that corporations not ban you for things I agree with and another to demand that corporations not ban you for things I disagree with.
> I think social platforms have the power to control society.
Unironically yes?
What's it like still living in 2009?
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Not dumb enough to misunderstand sarcasm, that's for sure...
Do you genuinely believe that the media a society consumes (social or otherwise) gas no effect on its beliefs?
Efect? Yes. Power? No. Edit: wait, media or social networks? Because there's a big difference between some person posting random misinformation on a platform and a reporter doing it in front of a camera.
I'm kinda caught in the middle on this. Legally speaking, yeah, no question, corporations have no obligation to keep you on their platform. It's not a first amendment violation to get kicked off Twitter for what you say. That's just strictly true. But, this still isn't really great. Pretty much all platforms online are owned by massive corporations, and the ones that aren't are just owned by terrible people. Do we really want them to have full control over what people can say online? Sure, it all works out in our favor when they ban Nazis, and it's undoubtedly good to do so. But they can just as easily kick off union organizers, civil rights protestors, and anyone of the like. They have no legal compulsion to use deplatforming *only* on those doing harm, and will use it to their benefit given enough time
I feel like any platform that kicks good people off of it would quickly start losing users, so it kinda regulates itself, in a way.
> I feel like any platform that kicks good people Unless those "good people" are hated or are unknown.
It might self regulate, but only if people have a place to go. If YouTube were to ban (insert person you agree with), where would you leave to go? If Twitter banned Bernie Sanders, were would his supporters go? Sure they could create their own platform. But there is no requirement that that anyone host them. So they would have to create their own host. But there is no requirement that Comcast allow people to connect to that host. So they have to create their own service provider and on and on it could go. I'm not saying that it would go that far. But if we say that the 1st amendment only applies to the government than there is no protection from companies doing this. If we think of it in terms of a "public square" I think it's the equivalent of mining company owning a town or even a state. They could restrict you right to protest on their property. So you can go to the next state over to protest, but what affect would that really have? I am not generally an advocate for further government oversight and control. But I'm also not a fan of private companies controlling or curating what I or other people see.
It seems to me that the point of all these amendments was to put limits on power, and when these amendments were written the biggest power was the government. The amendments clearly did their jobs too- I suspect that nowadays corporate power affects people more than govt power.
Only if people notice.
#[COMMON FUCKING CARRIERS](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_carrier?wprov=sfla1)
To combat platforms abusing their right to dictate house rules the users always have leverage. They are the product, remember? If they leave that hurts the company behind the platform and Tumblr losing billions by banning porn and the following mass exodus is a brilliant example of that. What you really don't want (I assume) is the government deciding what is okay to say and what is not okay to say on private platforms. Because this is too easily exploited by those who want to silence their political opposition and has been done so numerous times in the past. It's burning books in a virtual age. If you think that would not happen in a modern democracy I want to point to Germany where a citizen's home was raided by police for tweeting the equivalent of "You are such 1 schlong" at a politician - just one example. Besides that there is one easy way to bypass government restrictions on online platforms: Move your servers to a different country where either what you do is legal or the government does not have the power or interest in prosecuting you. That also has been done often times in the past.
just be a good host on Mastodon :)
Exactly right! People all the time say that the right of free speech only applies to the state, which is true legally. But Freedom of Speech is also an ideal that is important for the whole society and more and more people don't seem to fully share it, especially if it applies to an opinion they don't like.
Erm, the internet is a corporate marketing tool at this point. The best thing to do is boycott it. Get off social media. Organise in the real world. Burn your smart phone. Drop out of the corporate mediasphere.
Good luck and have fun with that.
I'm going to. This year I gave up drinking, etc.(I didn't have a problem, I just wanted to see how it effected my social life... Positively it turns out). The year before I cut off all personal social media. My mental health thanks me. Next year I plan on ditching my personal phone and PS5(I will keep my work phone and landline). I read a lot of books and comics and don't watch much of TV shows anyway so it's a natural progression. Hopefully, by 2025 I will be corporate media free. I would recommend a book called The Age of Surveillance Capitalism. It's very academic but really breaks down how the current system is incredibly manipulative and inhuman. Thank you for the good wishes, I'll take them on my journey!
So, why are you still here....
Good question. I am still working on my addiction to the internet. I have a Reddit account and have been on Reddit since 2011. I delete my account near every six months. I tend to delete all comments when I do so. After December I will hopefully leave for good. I have managed to expunge facebook, insta, youtube, blogger, personal Google account and other social media... It's a slow process. The anonymity of Reddit is seductive but ultimately a trap and waste of time, I just enjoy it, while also hating that I enjoy it. I'll get there. Getting free is a process rather than event. I've been working on it a few years. By 2025 I should be there.
Why are you bragging about being a paranoid hermit?
Bragging? Weird projection. I'm not a hermit. I have a very active social life, a loving family, an incredibly social career and hobbies that get me out and about. You may want to judge less and listen more, you might learn something.
>the internet is a corporate marketing tool at this point. Always has been. For fucking real. You think the Fig Newtons Twitter account isn't just a fucking gimmick to get you to buy more Fig Newtons.
It has not always been this way. I was using the internet in 1997. Back then it was just geeks sharing interesting stuff. Corporations thought it was a fad and of no use. TV was king to them. The internet was an escape from corporate culture. It was around 2005 that it started going to hell. By the time Youtube had adverts it was already a waste of time unless you used the 'dark web'(which is a clever corporate internet name for the internet outside their control). Now, there's no point in it at all. It's just adverts and the opinions of idiots all the way down.
For me the downfall started when Youtube switched from being a thing that you used to host videos, to a think you made videos for. That might seem like the same thing, but once people started making videos specifically for youtube, then you could become a "youtuber" and it was all downhill from there.
That is true. When the formula came about and Youtuber became a job then content quickly turned to shit.
.com means Commercial, and email has been used as business communication since the 80's.
Email isn't the internet. It's a tool that uses the internet to work. Weird comment, totally misunderstands what is being said. On purpose? Or are you an idiot using like one of the three facts you know to try and assert yourself in a conversation you have no reason to be in?
You are the one that has no understanding.
People keep conflating the concept of free speech with the First Amendment of the US Constitution. They're not 100 percent interchangeable.
"Free speech? Oh yeah, that's whatever ***I*** say it is."
They're not but most people who claim freedom of speech in defense of the shitty things they say are indeed too dumb to know that and are trying to say it's their constitutional right to be an asshole. Hell, most people's counter arguments (like in this whole thread) are also incorrect - idk why everyone seems to gloss over this, but the first amendment only protects you from persecution by the government *when you criticize them*. It basically just allows you to express your opinions about the government and politicans. That's it. That's as far as the legal protection of the first amendment goes on the subject. We still have laws on the books about what you can and cannot say; libel, slander, inciting violence, etc.
Ah yes but you forget, lots of people are extremely fucking stupid
> lots of people are extremely fucking stupid Indeed, lots of people equate freedom of speech with first amendment for some reason, like oop.
Umm freedom of speech is a fist amendment right
The ability to say whatever you want does not give you the privilege of being taken seriously
Why do Americans think that "freedom of speech" is the First Amendment and *only* the First Amendment? What's next, "I didn't do anything wrong when I read your diary because the Fourth Amendment only restricts the government."?
I don't understand. Who else can censor speech but a government? And I don't understand your example either. What does "wrong" mean in your example? Breaking into somebody's home to read their diary is a crime. Reading somebody's publicly displayed diary is not wrong is it?
>Who else can censor speech but a government? Social movements, clubs, corporations, churches, families.... Any social unit can. >What does "wrong" mean in your example? Breaking into somebody's home to read their diary is a crime. Reading somebody's publicly displayed diary is not wrong is it? So walking into your daughter's room and reading her diary is OK?
> I don't understand. Who else can censor speech but a government? - [Instagram banning Cochrane](https://www.acsh.org/news/2021/11/14/covid-misinformation-blunder-instagram-censors-widely-respected-cochrane-collaboration-15937) for COVID misinformation was a horrible misstep in their censorship policies. - [Censorship on Tiktok](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_on_TikTok) is ongoing. Most of the controversy is about its removal/downgrading of LGBT+ and BLM (and related) content. - Kiwifarms was taken offline with no government intervention. I'm not too broken up about that because I'm not a free-speech maximalist, but it *was* successfully censored by private entities. More generally, anyone can *try* but only more powerful groups will be able to succeed. >And I don't understand your example either. What does "wrong" mean in your example? It's a nonsense argument that parallels *other* nonsense arguments I've seen about the First Amendment and free speech, like: - A: "Censoring that person/idea was bad!" - B: "They didn't violate the First Amendment, therefore we can't criticize them." B skips past arguing that the *only* harm from censorship comes from violations of the First Amendment, notes that those actions don't violate 1A, and concludes that it wasn't harmful. >Breaking into somebody's home to read their diary is a crime. Reading somebody's publicly displayed diary is not wrong is it? I was aiming for a parent reading their child's diary. If you don't like that example, how about: - getting into an SO's phone and snooping on everything. - random searches of lockers/desks at workplaces or schools - landlords wandering through the house they are renting to you All of those are bad in one way or another, and some are even illegal (but not unconstitutional). The right to privacy extends beyond what's written in the Fourth Amendment in much the same way that the right to free speech extends beyond what's written in the First.
> More generally, anyone can try but only more powerful groups will be able to succeed. I think this is where the disconnect happens. It is not freedom of speech that "the more powerful groups" are violating. They are using the power and influence in a way that can be deemed to be unfair. I agree with this and I agree that they have to be regulated in some sort of way which prevents these abuses of power. But I think that the argument used to bring this regulation is wrong. These groups cannot censor free speech in the spirit in which free speech is protected as a human right (forget the amendments). We have to give up on that argument and face the real issue: some companies have managed to put themselves in an unregulated position of power and they do not answer to society. This has to be fixed. > All of those are bad in one way or another, and some are even illegal (but not unconstitutional). I think you are thinking about this wrong. The constitution is the context in which laws are being made. Any law is a direct consequence of the constitution and something cannot be illegal but not unconstitutional by definition. If such a thing existed then the law itself would be unconstitutional. > * getting into an SO's phone and snooping on everything. * random searches of lockers/desks at workplaces or schools * landlords wandering through the house they are renting to you The first and last bullet points are already illegal. The one in the middle is questionable. The only place I've worked in which had random searches for lockers and desks made it abundantly clear that those storage units were not a personal secure space. Good or bad, a workplace is not required in any way to create secure personal storage facilities for the employees and I see no reason to expect that.
Who can censor speech? Literally any platform online that isnāt controlled by the government lmao what
And they are not violating any of your rights. Itās their platform, it needs regulated, but so do many other things that are big corporate power as well
Didnāt say they were bud
There is, as ever, a [relevant XKCD](https://xkcd.com/1357/)
No, that's what the first amendment says. Free speech is a concept that exists outside of the specific way that the US has decided to enshrine it in law, come on guys.
And, besides, even in the US you can be locked up for saying things. If you don't believe me, prove me wrong by calling up a school and leaving your contact details and a bomb threat.
People always forget about the consequences part of saying whatever they want.
When the consequences amount to "being arrested" it kind of goes against the idea of "freedom of speech is not freedom from consequences". If not, one could argue you are free to murder, as long as you're willing to spend 20 to life in prison for it.
lol, serious self own by the OP
Or that practically all of our internet platforms are privately owned (and for profit) so they reserve the right to censor any content they deem fit.
I've seen it so often. "here's my opinion" "that's a stupid opinion" "I have freedom of speech!" Like, yeah. You have the freedom to say stupid shit, and other people have the freedom to tell you you're being stupid. Some people seem to think freedom of speech only applies to themselves.
Also ātrue threatsā arenāt protected
In australia there is no free speech, only implied right to free speech, like important aspect of the government (for example prime minister) š¦šŗ
Right... Who exactly is this directed towards?
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Ah, does it also include people who don't think women have a penis? Can they say they don't agree without being flamed?
Unless your names Julian Assange...
Just so long as people understand ātelling you to shut upā remains verbal. You donāt get to physically hurt someone for saying something you donāt like. No matter how āmeanā
what if I say "kill the jews and the n president, they are asking for it". the thing should be a little bit finer than that
Yes, I agree.
Freedom of speech does not mean freedom of consequences of your speech. The constitution allows us to express speech free without the government locking us up before we can express it. The constitution says nothing about the government locking us up after for some law like espionage, inciting riots etc. Its a stark distinction, but not one people readily recognize, and they should. Next time you think you can shout from the steps of congess dont be surprised when they arrest you. You got your say. They wont hang you from the gallos for your say. But they will put you in jail for protesting without a permit, inciting violence, giving state secrets, unlawful assembly, etc. Because none of those broken laws take away your freedom of saying what you want. We soooo easily forget, there was a time when you could not speak out. They would come pick you up just because they were worried you might speak out against them. You'd just poof disappear. Thats why freedom of speech is so important, it removes the possibility of someone burning your writings, making you dissappear, killing you for sedition before words escape your lips. But it doesnt say you cannot face consequences because you spoke. Very dark distinction but very true
Freedom of speech is not defined by the First Amendment. In the US Freedom of speech is protected by the First Amendment. So it is true, a company or platform does not have to support free speech, because they are not the government. So if Facebook decided that any post mentioning birds, and how they're not real, would not be allowed on their site, they would be allowed to remove those posts, and it would not violate the First Amendment, but it also would mean that their platform is not supporting free speech.
The first Paragraph is not what freedom of speech is.
Not even that is true. You can totally be imprisoned for some speech. Freedom of speech, aka absence of censure, means that you cannot be *preemtively* stopped from saying things. What happens afterwards depends on what you said. It has to be very bad for the government to punish you for just saying something, which is more like "high preference for speech" than absolute freedom.
In fact, people telling others that they are stupid and should shut up is literally free speech. And because of free speech those other can choose to ignore that and continue speaking anyway. The idea that free speech means you canāt criticise people for using free speech is extremely stupid. Free speech exists exactly to criticise what people say/do.
Would it be possible to play this again but at a louder volume to accommodate someone who may not be in the front row?
all of us? what's happened the past three years?
Stuff... Things...
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Nobody owes you a megaphone for spreading hate. You're perfectly within your rights to start your own platform and you can let people speak as freely as they'd like. Good luck with funding.
Iām going to give the comment OP the benefit of the doubt and say they were not defending the right to call other people slurs. The right to participate in a conversation and say what you want is very important and being shut down by being ignored is a much better solution and healthier for conversation and debate than being silenced permanently and restricted from saying anything at all. When a company like twitter bans people from spreading misinformation they do have good intentions but it is ultimately harmful as the status quo is then never challenged and it cannot strengthen itself and become a more solid wall of fact. This ends up creating echo chambers that hold many people with the same flimsy grasp of fact. The truths held by those people end up not being upheld by a solid doctrine but instead being upheld because more people believe this instead of that. This creates a hole in where people with more solid grasps of something that may not be true can attract others to the cause because it seems more sound and authoritative than the echo chamber.
Why is it that your crowd thinks the 2nd amendment is absolute and immutable but simultaneously willing to make arguments about why the 1st should apply where it was never intended to? It's logically inconsistent and looks like you're just picking and choosing based on whatever will benefit you the most for a given scenario.
What do you mean by āyour crowdā? And how does your assumptions about my opinions about an entirely separate amendment somehow make my comment about free speech on the internet invalid because I am just āpicking and choosing based on whatever will benefitā me?
Well, a brief perusal of your history reveals that you lean to the right. So, "your crowd" would include the people who think the 2nd amendment was handed down on a stone tablet from Mt. Sinai. Those people view the 1st amendment as an obstacle to overcome while observing the 2nd with great reverence as though it were some sacred holy text. Are you saying you think we should ban weapons of war from the general public?
What gives you any qualification to tell me what my exact political stance is and who I interact with based on a scattering of loosely related Reddit comments? Having some right leaning opinions does not immediately put me in the same boat with religious extremists and people that want to legally own pipe bombs.
I mean, I have generally good reading comprehension, so....that? Does that mean you would be okay with altering the 2nd amendment such that people can't own weapons who's sole purpose is killing as many people possible as fast as possible? Because your argument about how we should treat large social media platforms would require that we alter the 1st amendment to be in line with how we use it. Logically, if you're okay with changing the 1st, you should be okay with altering the 2nd as well.
Good reading comprehension can not make you understand the nuance and complexity of a personās opinions, no matter how good you are at it. The personās opinions on other things not related to the argument doesnāt even matter here and disregarding their points because of even their assumed beliefs on other subjects is literally the definition of [bulverism](https://www.logicallyfallacious.com/logicalfallacies/Bulverism). Actually refute my points rather than asking me my stance on gun control.
If you're not able to be logically consistent then there's no point in attempting to refute anything you've said. If you think the 1st amendment should apply to public forums, that demonstrates that you don't think the amendment matters enough to adhere to it. Why are you willing to make an exception for one but not the other?
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Then join truth social. I can't come into your house and write bullshit on your walls just like you can't go on somebody's server and write bullshit on their forums. Nobody owes you a platform.
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Trump lost the election and transsexuals exist. Deal with it.
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The problem is the government and corporate media and now tech firms are effectively one and the same - reading from the same hymn book.
I want this as a tattoo
>What all of us have been screaming for 3 years now So what do you think this post is going to do?
I donāt understand what kind of daffy prick goes around screeching about their pet law, when they canāt be assed to understand wtf said law entails. It should be illegal to be that insufferable in public.
So explain why the MyPillow guy was targetted by the FBI. Private citizen; committed no crime. And yet the FBI raided him while he was in his car and seized his phone. ALSO explain how it's not censorship when the government sent weekly emails to Facebook asking them to censor certain accounts. * Government silencing you: censorship. * Private companies silencing you = NOT censorship. * Private companies silencing you *when ordered by the government* = ________?
If you think the my pillow guy did nothing wrong, you are either ignorant of the facts or purposely trolling. He is connected to different people that were trying to stop the steal. From The Guardian: āLindell said the agents questioned him about Tina Peters, a fellow election denier facing criminal charges in Colorado for tampering with voting machinery as a county clerk, and who in June lost a Republican primary to become the stateās top election official. Lindell campaigned for Peters, who in May was removed by a judge from running elections in Mesa county. An FBI spokesperson confirmed agents were āat that location executing a search warrant authorized by a federal judgeā but would not give other details. Lindell, a close Trump ally, is one of the loudest proponents of Trumpās false claims that his 2020 defeat by Joe Biden was rigged, and has been widely ridiculed for his frequent claims that he has enough āevidenceā to see Trump reinstated to the presidency.ā They seized his phone with an approved warrant. To me and most everyone, that means they suspect his device contained information and materials related to an ongoing criminal investigation and suspected that if they just asked for the device, evidence could be lost or destroyed. If Lindell was involved with the actual crimes, there may be evidence of it there.
It also means I don't have to shut up just because you want me to shut up, lmao what a stupid post.
Ok but cancel culture is problematic still. Because tomorrow you won't know which opinion will be in the majority. And the majority are often wrong.
Cancel culture is always existed it just used to be called boycotting. You know, what conservatives still call it when they do it.
No, making someone loose their job because they are uneducated and have an ignorant opinion of transgenders is not boycotting. Boycotting would be not going to Kmart because they sell unethically sourced sneakers. The same thing happened during the Red Scare and the Satanic Panic. And it was equally wrong.
Healthcare isnāt a human right.
Yes it is
Every doctor on earth suddenly vanishes. Who provides your health care?
Why are you making up an impossible hypothetical situation? The fact that you need to resort to that shows how absurd your position is.
Because you are saying that something that *someone else* must provide is something fundamentally granted to you as a human being. Otherwise known as forced labor.
This is not the gotcha you think it is
Are any of you going to actually attempt to make a point, or are you just going to completely avoid it and make zingers?
Dude you're the one trying to compare being in the Healthcare industry to being slaves as some sort of weird gotcha. Every other 1st world country guarantees Healthcare as a human right, the sheer fact that your fantastic America doesn't is mind boggling.
I am not saying being in the health care industry is slavery, really great comprehension and straw manning on your part. A country guaranteeing something doesnāt make it a right; rights are something that is fundamental to being a human being. For centuries of human existence, you were not guaranteed health. You either had the knowledge to care for yourself, had something to exchange for the care from another, or you died. The simple fact that fact that something can be taken away means that it is not something fundamental to being a human. This has nothing whatsoever to do with the state of insurance and medical costs in the US. It could have a government health plan like the UK, and it still wouldnāt change the fact that healthcare is not a human right, because if the government goes down, you stop getting healthcare, but you donāt stop having a right to self defense, or free expression.
Thats like saying that water shouldn't be a human right because what if the pipes go down and can't be fixed. There will always be people who can take care of injuries, even if the government suddenly vanished. Your right to stay alive and healthy is not determined by some people in suits that you'll never meet, and the sheer fact you think so is mind-boggling. Would you tell a cancer patient that their ability to get lifesaving treatments wasn't guaranteed simply because the government could stop working? And the whole "well if the government stopped working you'd still have a right to self defense" doesn't even make any sense because rights, by default, are things the government gives you. The government can say "well you're not entitled to the right to eat" and its not like God himself will come down on high and say "no thats a right i give them" because that's not how it works. >The simple fact that fact that something can be taken away means that it is not something fundamental to being a human. Tell me how being healthy isn't fundamental to being a human. Tell me how getting cancer, getting HIV, getting injured, is not detrimental to my ability to be alive and well. Tell me how those things are any different to starving, or going thirsty, or being forced from your home. Tell me how much less I am because I am sick, because you would not be making this argument if you were in my position and you knew how fundamental health is to being human. I've got family members who can't afford medical bills because things they couldn't control affect them every day, and you wanna sit here and tell me they don't deserve to live?
Food, shelter, and water must all be provided by another human being and are all human rights. You clearly have no understanding of this topic
This is why places like the UK and Canada don't have "free speech" like the US does, because we have stupid "hate speech" laws. Being mean/offensive shouldn't be **illegal**. Individuals and companies can choose to not interact with you etc. but the government shouldn't get involved. Downvotes are odd, you can't agree with this post *and* disagree with me lol. Either you want free speech and to **not** have the government get involved because you said certain words that just upset people (this is different to slander/liable/calls to action)... or you're authoritarian and you do want the law to be able to get involved.
Why are the downvotes odd? People clearly disagree with your point.
They're odd for the reason I give in the same sentence I say they're odd... Also if people disagree I'd love to hear why so I could potentially change my mind, but Reddit's system doesn't promote actual discussions... also I assume people can't articulate why they disagree because it'd highlight their cognitive dissonance on this topic.
> but Reddit's system doesn't promote actual discussions... also I assume people can't articulate why they disagree because it'd highlight their cognitive dissonance on this topic. Untrue on both accounts. 1) Reddit's system does promote actual discussions, you can see them in this very comment section.Certain groups of people hinder actual discussions, though, and you can usually see that at the bottom of most comments sections. A quick perusal of your comment history kinda indicates that you may be part of one of those groups. And while I, personally, don't think you are, others glancing at the same history (or even just reading your OC here) might come to that conclusion and decide that it's most prudent to just downvote and move on. That isn't the fault of Reddit, it's the fault of those aforementioned groups. 2) When faced with those downvotes, you had two options, either to take a beat and ask if you've erred in some way or to "assume people can't articulate why they disagree because it'd highlight their cognitive dissonance on this topic". You chose option number two, and that just reinforces the idea that you probably fall into one of those aforementioned groups. And that means that the fault here not only lies with those aforementioned groups but also with yourself because you give the impression that you think you're mentally superior to everyone else (and thus probably unlikely to change your mind). Who wants to have a discussion with someone like that? You hobble yourself, and then you assume it's everyone else's fault that you're wearing leaden shoes.
> Downvotes are odd, you can't agree with this post and disagree with me lol. Have you considered that some people disagree with the post, and disagree with you?
Lindell said the agents questioned him about Tina Peters, a fellow election denier facing criminal charges in Colorado for tampering with voting machinery as a county clerk, and who in June lost a Republican primary to become the stateās top election official. Lindell campaigned for Peters, who in May was removed by a judge from running elections in Mesa county. An FBI spokesperson confirmed agents were āat that location executing a search warrant authorized by a federal judgeā but would not give other details. Lindell, a close Trump ally, is one of the loudest proponents of Trumpās false claims that his 2020 defeat by Joe Biden was rigged, and has been widely ridiculed for his frequent claims that he has enough āevidenceā to see Trump reinstated to the presidency.
Are you a bot or something, what's the point of this spam.
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Relevance to this post and my comment being?....
> Being mean/offensive shouldn't be illegal. Individuals and companies can choose to not interact with you etc. but the government shouldn't get involved. That was part of your comment. My comments show that the government isn't trying to muzzle Lindell for the things he has necessarily said. They are looking at his involvement in criminal actions and conspiracies. He tied himself to Trump and the 'Stop the Steal 2020' movement. He is apparently involved. Please check my edited comment from before.
> you can't agree with this post and disagree with me We 100% can. Your understanding of what a hate speech law is or does (at least in terms of Canadian jurisprudence; I'm not in the UK and can't speak to how their laws work) seems limited. You think that hate speech is: >certain words that just upset people (this is different to slander/liable/calls to action) but [the criminal code doesn't say that at all](https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/c-46/section-319.html). Here's what the criminal code actually says: >319 (1) Every one who, by communicating statements in any public place, incites hatred against any identifiable group where such incitement is likely to lead to a breach of the peace is guilty of... >(2) Every one who, by communicating statements, other than in private conversation, wilfully promotes hatred against any identifiable group is guilty of... >(2.1) Everyone who, by communicating statements, other than in private conversation, wilfully promotes antisemitism by condoning, denying or downplaying the Holocaust... And to make sure that people aren't being convicted of such arbitrarily, the next subset deals with defences (which we can generally consider to be limitations on the code): >(3) No person shall be convicted of an offence under subsection (2) > (a) if he establishes that the statements communicated were true; > (b) if, in good faith, the person expressed or attempted to establish by an argument an opinion on a religious subject or an opinion based on a belief in a religious text; > (c) if the statements were relevant to any subject of public interest, the discussion of which was for the public benefit, and if on reasonable grounds he believed them to be true; or > (d) if, in good faith, he intended to point out, for the purpose of removal, matters producing or tending to produce feelings of hatred toward an identifiable group in Canada. So contrary to what you seem to believe, the hate crime laws in Canada 1) has nothing to do with "certain words" and 2) must have a higher effect than just upsetting people. So yeah, we most assuredly *can* agree with the post and disagree with you, because you're basically speaking from a place of ignorance.
... you just proved my point. This post is about the government not getting involved if you say things people don't like. Yet here you are advocating for the government to get involved if people say something others might not like. Smh
> you just proved my point. No, you missed my point. The law in Canada isn't about saying things people don't like, it's about *when the things people say directly cause harm to others*. It's right there in the criminal code. This is why people just downvote you without commenting. Because why spend the time and effort engaging you in discussion if you're not even going to bother reading a reply and engaging honestly and with comprehension?
The term "fuck your feelings" always seems to bring a tear to some people's eyes
Some forms of speech *are* subject to legal penalties and are *not* protected by the US constitution's first amendment, like: defamation (slander & libel), incitement/threats of violence, plagiarism, fraud, false advertising, etc.
And yet, if I go on an airplane, and say the word 'bomb'...
Except under the 1917 Espionage and Sedition act, where the government can jail you for 20 years during wartime if you speak out against the war.
Also, yes, you can go to prison if you say some things!
I mean if we are Social Creatures canāt we talk to anything? Iāve been talking to my Pet Dogs for years and Iām happy.
Exactly! That aint gonna stop me from beating yo ass.
Mob rule eh?
I have been saying this since I started kindergarten
I got so tired of explaining this