Now, let's talk about a whole ass national government stealing millions of dollars worth of donated currency and goods from an actual peaceful protest, to benefit the very tyrants being protested against as well as violent extremist groups that said tyrant had thrown in with in recent history.
I think it's logical to assume that removing a book from the reading list of a state-run school is significantly different from asking (or demanding, as much of twitter seems to be doing) what a private company does with one of their employees or contractors
Conflating the two would commit the logical fallacy of false equivalence
The usual suspects would argue that organizing a smear/harassment campaign is just "the free market at work", whereas a government ran school should never do anything a pa(R)ticular elected party might want, because it's (D)ifferent for them. I know my thoughts on these arguments, would you share yours?
As I indicated on another recent post, a job is not made invalid or valid because of people saying so. A job is made valid if one party will voluntarily pay money for the goods or services of another party, and the contract is carried out in good faith by both parties
The "free market at work" is simply you choosing to buy or not buy a product or service, and negotiating with the other party involved can be a healthy part of the process
To make demands regarding a deal with which you are not involved is more like activism. Which might well be beneficial in some cases, but if you're not careful it can look like so-called "cancel culture"
Well like I say, there's communication borne out of a spirit of respectful negotiation, and there's demanding things from people who have no contract with you. Twitter is particularly notorious for the mob-like demands often made on the platform
Nietszche talked about how "In individuals, insanity is the exception rather than the rule. With crowds, it is the opposite". I'm paraphrasing somewhat but you get the point
It’s an interesting point, the line between harassment and activism or free speech.
A protest is a bunch of people demanding something of a third party, variations of this which threaten boycotts of services or block access to the public could be seen as a form of harassment- attempting to use non violent force through denial to force those who rely on the denied service or spaces to capitulate to the demands of a group which may or may not represent the majority will or be able to achieve their goals through a public vote.
So what makes it “cancel culture” and what is activism or expressing freedom of speech? If I don’t like an artist I can complain about them, if I don’t like a person I can refuse to do business with them or their associates. If millions feel the same way, they can too. If we each act individually is that ok, but if those like minded people organize- does that change things?
Our economic model is designed around an idea that companies and individuals will make goods or provide services and if people want to support them by exchanging money for their offerings they will; if people do not wish to support the individual or company or exchange for their offerings, they won’t.
If a person decides they don’t want to listen to Spotify because of the programming choices or business associations, how is that wrong of them to have the freedom to make that choice? Isn’t the only issue we could have that they are making a choice we don’t agree with?
Freedom of speech is hard to apply to a corporate platform. You can’t for example expect to be allowed to stand in the middle of a concert as a random audience member and give a speech in the venue. You’d be asked to leave. The owner or operator of the platform had the right to define what it is used for. We could mandate otherwise, but doesn’t that then deny them the freedom to control their own property?
An interesting question. Legally it doesn’t matter. 47 U.S.C. § 230 Nullifies the distinctions between biased and neutral platforms, and there isn’t a legal distinction between the concept of publisher and platform as it applies online. There can be a distinction between publishing and republication- that itself is a tricky question.
The core of the thing is wether or not providing a space for people to speak makes you liable for what is said. It seeks intuitive, but the courts have backed the interpretation- the same fee speech that allows an individual to go on a service like Twitter or an open stage gives the curator of that space rights to free expression through editing or other forms. This is especially important when one party is presenting words and content of another, as the party presenting has their own rights as to what they decide to display on their private space. So an artist is free to paint, a gallery is free to show it, or not show it,
Show it under blue lights instead of the green the artist intended, or cover half of it with another painting. This can be simplified in concept as “my house, my rules.” A private owner controls their private space within the boundaries of law. A network decides what their cameras shoot or their antenna transmit and you decide if you want to let the door to door salesman speak or if you will not in your home.
Of course, not everyone has the resources to own their own Twitter- so it raises the question: if two people have equal voice but unequal ability to be heard, how do we handle that, or is that how freedom works? Each person is free to start their own content hosting service and to succeed or fail on their merits at gaining an audience. Is that right though? The person with the most money has the best chance to be heard or the most popular person?
But…. Without stepping on personal freedoms or having state controlled media.. how do we balance that out? But yeah- either term
And when you see blatant cases of selective enforcement? Such as, everyone knows the rules, but the only big names to ever be punished are those on the "wrong" side?
Mmmm. Not saying it can’t or doesn’t happen- but….. questionable. Firstly- enforcement of what exactly? The rules that apply to broadcast television or print don’t all apply online. There is debate over the aforementioned “section 230” and neutrality of content providers.. but that doesn’t mean what most people thinks it does. The concept of neutrality is subjective to start- with broadcast tv they could require equal air time be given to opposing parties for example- what would YouTube do and how does it support free speech to force YouTube- a private company, to force a viewer to watch an entire equal length video they didn’t ask for because they watched the other guys? It’s hard with “on demand” services to enforce any sort of “equal time” or exposure- even if I “feature” your video for 4 hours and Jim’s video for 4 hours- one of those videos may find its 4 hours inside of peak traffic while another finds it at low traffic. Or peak traffic hours may be when people are more likely…
… to watch humor videos- so I get a million visits at peak but only 100 people watch political content, then I show your political video at an off hour when only 1,000 people are online- but in those hours, 500 people watch political videos.
The time and presence on the site are equal, but other than that the opportunity or likelihood to be heard are not. If we let the posters choose or buy slots, we are back to a bidding war where those with the money to research peak odds and buy that slot first have an advantage. The more money club still has better exposure for their message but now it’s more complex. The more money club is favored because they can more easily sue if they feel disadvantaged, and they also now can more easily sue as a form of intimidation to tie up companies that don’t play well with them in courts and legal fees. Plus when wrong is done- we can’t order all the people who saw the thing to forget it at the polls. Like when politicians fling mud because even if…
It’s rather messy- and I got a little sideways. I’m not sure how to handle that if or when it happens. We have a majority conservative Supreme Court, now and in the last administration. The previous administration was extremely conservative and staffed many positions with conservatives, and for a time conservatives controlled the houses as well. In that environment, one would expect bias to go towards conservative values, and it would imply when rulings went against conservative bias that those rulings were all the more valid. Currently the courts are still conservative bias but the upper executive branch is liberal and the houses lean slightly liberal- so we could infer the opposite.
The concept of neutrality becomes a bit questionable when we look at that though. We expect a private company to balance views to preserve freedom of speech against overwhelming power or wealth- but our own government can be strongly unbalanced based on who has control. Odd.
Well our government's executive is "losing patience" with us and is currently on the bandwagon trying to pressure a private entity into deplatforming a Podcaster for the crime of... getting high and talking to experts for a few hours...
I meant more ToS violations, or deliberately subjective rules for a particular platform. Not as a matter of broadcasting laws.
Assuming it is even the place of the government to dictate what a private party chooses to feature in their space and how, what movies or books may be printed or how many must carry what morals values and so forth….
It’s also the ruling of the high courts that publication bias is itself a freedom of speech. The editorial is protected speech and the editor is allowed to express their views in the content the publish. So I’m still not entirely sure on wether it is appropriate to tell a private business how to run themselves or what criteria we would use… but if it became an issue that businesses were not and that ruling were favoring a certain ideology…. I guess it depends. Democracy is hard. Everyone is supposed to be represented but we also can’t run an entire country to the will of a small number. Some things aren’t compatible with America, so we have to rule against those things. Everything else id have to take case by case.
1Reply
deleted
· 2 years ago
Well. At least you hid the political meme this time. I thank you for that
State run schools thus do not have freedom of speech
Conflating the two would commit the logical fallacy of false equivalence
The "free market at work" is simply you choosing to buy or not buy a product or service, and negotiating with the other party involved can be a healthy part of the process
To make demands regarding a deal with which you are not involved is more like activism. Which might well be beneficial in some cases, but if you're not careful it can look like so-called "cancel culture"
Nietszche talked about how "In individuals, insanity is the exception rather than the rule. With crowds, it is the opposite". I'm paraphrasing somewhat but you get the point
A protest is a bunch of people demanding something of a third party, variations of this which threaten boycotts of services or block access to the public could be seen as a form of harassment- attempting to use non violent force through denial to force those who rely on the denied service or spaces to capitulate to the demands of a group which may or may not represent the majority will or be able to achieve their goals through a public vote.
So what makes it “cancel culture” and what is activism or expressing freedom of speech? If I don’t like an artist I can complain about them, if I don’t like a person I can refuse to do business with them or their associates. If millions feel the same way, they can too. If we each act individually is that ok, but if those like minded people organize- does that change things?
If a person decides they don’t want to listen to Spotify because of the programming choices or business associations, how is that wrong of them to have the freedom to make that choice? Isn’t the only issue we could have that they are making a choice we don’t agree with?
Freedom of speech is hard to apply to a corporate platform. You can’t for example expect to be allowed to stand in the middle of a concert as a random audience member and give a speech in the venue. You’d be asked to leave. The owner or operator of the platform had the right to define what it is used for. We could mandate otherwise, but doesn’t that then deny them the freedom to control their own property?
The core of the thing is wether or not providing a space for people to speak makes you liable for what is said. It seeks intuitive, but the courts have backed the interpretation- the same fee speech that allows an individual to go on a service like Twitter or an open stage gives the curator of that space rights to free expression through editing or other forms. This is especially important when one party is presenting words and content of another, as the party presenting has their own rights as to what they decide to display on their private space. So an artist is free to paint, a gallery is free to show it, or not show it,
Of course, not everyone has the resources to own their own Twitter- so it raises the question: if two people have equal voice but unequal ability to be heard, how do we handle that, or is that how freedom works? Each person is free to start their own content hosting service and to succeed or fail on their merits at gaining an audience. Is that right though? The person with the most money has the best chance to be heard or the most popular person?
But…. Without stepping on personal freedoms or having state controlled media.. how do we balance that out? But yeah- either term
The time and presence on the site are equal, but other than that the opportunity or likelihood to be heard are not. If we let the posters choose or buy slots, we are back to a bidding war where those with the money to research peak odds and buy that slot first have an advantage. The more money club still has better exposure for their message but now it’s more complex. The more money club is favored because they can more easily sue if they feel disadvantaged, and they also now can more easily sue as a form of intimidation to tie up companies that don’t play well with them in courts and legal fees. Plus when wrong is done- we can’t order all the people who saw the thing to forget it at the polls. Like when politicians fling mud because even if…
The concept of neutrality becomes a bit questionable when we look at that though. We expect a private company to balance views to preserve freedom of speech against overwhelming power or wealth- but our own government can be strongly unbalanced based on who has control. Odd.
I meant more ToS violations, or deliberately subjective rules for a particular platform. Not as a matter of broadcasting laws.
It’s also the ruling of the high courts that publication bias is itself a freedom of speech. The editorial is protected speech and the editor is allowed to express their views in the content the publish. So I’m still not entirely sure on wether it is appropriate to tell a private business how to run themselves or what criteria we would use… but if it became an issue that businesses were not and that ruling were favoring a certain ideology…. I guess it depends. Democracy is hard. Everyone is supposed to be represented but we also can’t run an entire country to the will of a small number. Some things aren’t compatible with America, so we have to rule against those things. Everything else id have to take case by case.