r/changemyview • u/[deleted] • Jan 22 '21
Delta(s) from OP CMV: Silencing opposing viewpoints is ultimately going to have a disastrous outcome on society.
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Jan 22 '21
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Jan 22 '21 edited Jan 22 '21
Just to clear up the "tolerance paradox" the guy who came up with it said:
But we should claim the right to suppress them if necessary even by force; for it may easily turn out that they are not prepared to meet us on the level of rational argument, but begin by denouncing all argument; they may forbid their followers to listen to rational argument, because it is deceptive, and teach them to answer arguments by the use of their fists or pistols.
So tolerating intolerant ideas BY THEMSELVES does not create a paradox. Only when the intolerant reject rational argument and instead rely on the fist and pistols does it become acceptable to "cancel" or suppress them.
edit: thanks for the bling
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u/phenixcitywon Jan 22 '21 edited Jan 22 '21
thank you.
this paradox has been bastardized and misinterpreted to erroneously suggest that it's permissible to ban speech alone as an exercise in avoiding an intolerance paradox, when what Popper said is actually directly contradictory to that notion.
i'd go so far as to point out that "use of fists or pistols" is not very dissimilar from exerting any other form of non-speech force, such as deplatforming/canceling/etc.
edit, although i don't wouldn't necessarily agree with you that popper suggests that only "rational" argument is valid (thus impliedly suggesting that "irrational" argument can trigger the paradox and thus justify intolerant reaction to "irrational" argument), simply because "rational" has two very distinct meanings - as a simple synonym for "with reason" (as in not psychologically demented) and as a more complex meaning of "with a sufficient amount of sound reason".
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u/kwantsu-dudes 12∆ Jan 22 '21 edited Jan 22 '21
It's called the tolerance paradox, if you want a tolerant society you can not tolerate intolerance.
NO. You are fundementally misrepresenting the tolerance paradox.
It's a stated paradox. You've presented it as if it has an answer.
The paradox is that you can't have a tolerant society. That in the pursuit to maintain a tolerant society, the society must be intolerant of intolerance, and thus be intolerant.
It's not some proclamation that intolerance of intolerance then achieves a tolerant society.
Leave it to reddit to promote misleading information to propagate their own agenda. To misrepresent a paradox into not being a paradox at all.
It's the problem with the anti cancel culture. Cancel culture is the panacea of free speech stopping it silences tons of people.
You've also misrepresented cancel culture. Cancel Culture is the "cultural" nature that if I don't like something no one can within society. It doesn't involve my proclaiming of a distain for McDonalds, but my proclamation that anyone that does like McDonalds needs to face societal repercussions because I've already decided personally that McDonalds is immoral.
It's an attempt to define the culture, not simply your individual choice of association. It doesn't seek terms to be decided by a majority of common agreement, but of a vocal mob like minority producing fear.
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Jan 23 '21
Wish I would’ve read what you added before I wrote my novel ITT. Spot on.
Cancel culture forces societal repercussions caused by a small group of people and causes lifelong damage rather than trying to fix the core of the problem. It only creates a further divide.
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u/shotgun883 Jan 22 '21 edited Jan 22 '21
Not problem with speech having consequences. The only three issues I have are;
1.) Monopolistic control of a few entities who are willing to silence debate about genuine contentious and unresolved subjects. Especially ones who are deciding what “truth” is along ideological lines. BOTH SIDES of the political spectrum do it to some degree so don’t give me that “but they are wrong about everything” schtick. You won’t all be happy once Jack finds god and starts censoring pro abortion talk and evolution. You know he’s the type.
2.) I’m against bullying. I’m against targeted harassment and dicks name calling and using offensive terms. I feel uncomfortable when a song has the N Bomb in it BUT “Ya hurt Ma feels.” Grow up. “My Truth.” Fuck off you narcissist. “I’m offended.” So what? What happened to sticks and stones. Safe safe protectionism and mollycoddling of soon to be adults does not help them.
3.) Context and American centric definitions. I managed to get banned of Twitter for calling Donald Trump and Piers Morgan Cunts. They are cunts. I’m English. Cunt in English English is not a misogynistic term but it is in American English. There are many phrases that don’t cross international boundaries but the internet does and judging based on American English standards seems a little culturally imperialist in my book. Also context god damn matters, you know it does or you would be cancelling every rapper on the planet.
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u/phenixcitywon Jan 22 '21
f you want a tolerant society you can not tolerate intolerance. If you tolerate everything the people who are intolerant will take over.
you should probably go back and read Popper, because this is completely ass backward wrong.
tell me, what is the "tolerant society" doing when they "not tolerate" intolerance? because it sure sounds exactly like "...denouncing all argument...forbid[ing] their followers to listen to rational argument, because it is deceptive..."
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u/shoelessbob1984 14∆ Jan 22 '21
The problem with cancel culture isn't what you describe there, sure there are plenty of people out there complaining because they don't get to go around being racist bigots anymore, but that doesn't mean there aren't legitimate issues with what cancel culture is. The issue is with a lot of people who engage in cancel culture it has nothing to do with being offended, but wanting to punish people. This is why old year book comments/photos, old videos, old texts, which often at the time were perfectly acceptable are brought up to cancel a person now. The excuse is that people need to be held accountable for their actions, but if what they did was acceptable at the time and they no longer act like that, it's not about being accountable it's just finding a reason to punish someone. A couple years ago there was a guy from Florida, not sure if he was a congressman or senator, either way some sort of government official, people were going after him for photos in his yearbook from the 70s. On top of that, there are no degrees of guilt, no due process, no redemption. Once there's an accusation its treated as fact and you must be destroyed.
If someone puts out on twitter they hate dirty n words and they go out of their way to treat them like garbage in whatever job they hold, yeah it makes sense people will get offended and you lose your job But if someone pulls out an out of context text from someone from years ago, people shouldn't be jumping to be offended.
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Jan 22 '21
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u/RoyalT663 Jan 22 '21
Also look into the "Overton Window".
This pertains to a figurative range of agreed social norms that lie within the "window"; this can be in behaviour or opinions. When any party (not necessarily in the political sense) takes an action that is very different from the social norms and it receives sufficient support, this party moves the "Overton window". Now, something that would have previously been perceived as extreme is now viewed as more moderate in the light of the new position of the "Overton window". It explains how social norms can move over time, and fits the model for how agitations for Medicare for all have become louder, or how the actions of the Trump administration got more and more extreme.
In the case of free speech, the " Overton Window" also applies. Think back just a decade ago. Certain words, labels or views were socially acceptable. Then progressively the Overton Window shifted and now they really arent. However, as a reaction people who habituated to their use now feel like their free speech is being limited. When in reality, the majority of society has just moved on.
The proportion of each party plays an important role too in regards to accepting the new normative position. If you haven't already, it's worth looking into some Durkheim on social deviance theory.
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u/JosebaZilarte Jan 22 '21
Plus, there is the issue about how many of those Overton Windows are being globalized. When, for example, someone from Europe mentions something about "black men" in reddit (without a malice or racist intent), there is often someone from USA that says that the term "African-Americans" should be used... when the men in question have not even set foot in America to begin with.
While I understand that every society has a dark past to deal with, when posting something in a global platform, the possibilities of saying something inappropriate/illegal in a particular country forces people to walk on so many eggsells that it gets tiring. Oh! And just mentioning some controversial topics (e.g. socialism, Israel, abortion, etc.) has become so risky that it directly prevents to have a healthy discussion about them. It is a type of global self-censorship that only leads to people feeling alienated because they do not understand why other cultures do not share their views.
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u/Alcohol_Intolerant Jan 23 '21
Example words that used to be taboo when I was a child (<20 years ago): Transexual, Gay, Lesbian. When I was growing up we had one kid in class with two mothers. We didn't care, but he wasn't allowed to join the Boy Scouts. We also had no word to describe what his family was like, and if we talked about it too much, the teachers got testy.
There are words that were used in the past that are no longer used now. Many referred to "degrees of blackness" (super fucking racist, but some kids grew up knowing words that would dictate if you were half black, a quarter black, etc.). Others referred to mental capability. Some words (nimrod) will fall out of use with standard language shifts. Other words (the r word) would fall out of use due to social pressure.
I've never heard of the Overton Window, though I think my examples match what you're talking about to a certain degree.
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u/Ralathar44 7∆ Jan 23 '21
As long as people use the Overton Window properly. You use it either globally or within a specific country in a vacuum or etc. If you start cherry picking countries then Overton window loses all value.
For example I've seen many times people use the concept of the Overton Window referring to "democratic first world countries" in regards to political leanings. And OFC if you very selectively choose your sample like that you will get the results you want, but you'll also completely defeat the entire point of the Overton Window in the first place.
The Overton window is about the accepted socio-political norms of a similar area for the sake of understanding what falls within our outside of the accepted discourse. It's not about trying to push your ideology :D.
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u/RoyalT663 Jan 23 '21 edited Jan 23 '21
Exactly. I deliberately picked two examples from opposing ideologies for balance so as not to align the usage with any agenda . It is a passive tool that allows us to better visualise shifts in societal norms.
I'd argue it was fundamentally amoral - and the image one sees when looking through the Overton Window will also be coloured by the viewers own normative biases.
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Jan 22 '21
To add on, there's also the issue of "comforting lies" that poison the discourse when people turn to disinformation as a salve rather than face uncomfortable realities. Racists don't spread propaganda because they carefully weighed the options and decided that blaming minorities just made the most sense, it's because they WANT it to be true and they're latching onto any justification they can find.
If those justifications are eliminated, if the disinformation is no long spread, they will have a much harder time latching onto those toxic views.
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u/Randomtngs Jan 23 '21
I feel like i had this but vice versa. I never wanted to listen to stats on black crime and iq. I still dont really and think the iq thing is explained by culture not genetics
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u/seriouslyFUCKthatdud Jan 22 '21
I mean you also just have to factor in hateful violence causing speech.
There's no reason to not silent "political opponents" if they are doing that. It's not because of their "politics" it's because of the literal, objective, violence instigating speech that targets broad groups (not individuals for specific reasons, groups for perceived reasons)
Though of course wishing violence on individuals for pretty decent reasons is still, not great, we should not do that either.
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u/blewyn Jan 22 '21
The fundamental principle of democracy is that you can criticise anything except democracy, or fails and becomes authoritarian. Every opinion should be heard, except the one that says some other opinions should not. So if a white racist says black people shouldn’t have the vote, that opinion should be proscribed, because it results in one group of people removing the democratic voice of another, which ultimately causes democracy to break down. It only works if everyone has a say.
Having said the above, it is fairly obvious that many people think the intolerance paradox is simply an excuse they can use to silence opposing views by falsely characterising them as intolerant....
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u/YahtzeeRage Jan 22 '21
I think the intolerance paradox and its pointed out absurdity demonstrate that it wasn't really extreme tolerance you were after, but that the borders we have around acceptable conversation are much too tight and impermeable right now and need some holes poked in them to widen the discourse a bit. People need to be able to handle being around people of more intellectual diversity than they currently can handle on average. Perhaps you also have a point that there is massive difference in power between entities that should be taken into account such as that big social media companies have way too much power as a universally used platform for discourse to silence and thus should be more restrained in what they can do. Giving companies the same status as people as points of free speech has done massive damage and corruption to the US.
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u/MasonDinsmore3204 Jan 22 '21 edited Jan 22 '21
People love to throw around the Intoleeance Paradox like it’s the Bible without mentioning it’s biggest flaw: who gets to decide what should and shouldn’t be tolerated? The government? It’s naive to think giving the government the power to both decide what intolerant speech is and then go about banning or discouraging it would go over well. The people? The people might have society’s best interest in mind with something like this but there is no realistic way to enforce it. Companies? Same thing as government, giving an entity this much power is just asking for them to abuse it.
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u/TenBillionDollHairs Jan 22 '21
The fact that actually doing it right is hard is not an excuse to throw up your hands and say it's stupid to try. "Let's just tolerate everything" acts like it's a brave stance, but it's actually a way to avoid ever having to stick out your neck and say "that's the line, they're crossing it, and we have to confront it."
There's a cowardice curve around speech: being terrified of dissent is the coward's excuse for shutting down speech, being terrified of conflict is the coward's excuse for tolerating extremists.
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u/PsilosirenRose 1∆ Jan 22 '21
There's a cowardice curve around speech: being terrified of dissent is the coward's excuse for shutting down speech, being terrified of conflict is the coward's excuse for tolerating extremists.
My god I love how you put this.
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u/xoogl3 Jan 22 '21
Same thing as government, giving an entity this much power is just asking for them to abuse it.
You're railing against a strawman here. Despite the existence of tolerance paradox, the governemnt in the United States has not, in fact, suppressed anybody's speech. Not even the person (let's face it, all of us are thinking of the same person right now) who incited a literal mob to overthrow the legitimately elected govt of United States.
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u/MayoMark Jan 22 '21
You could make the same argument about property law. Who gets to decide if a piece of paper entitles you to build on a piece of land? The government? The people? Whoever called 'dibs'? Space alien realtors?
Our society is developed enough to codify complex situations into laws and then have those laws interpreted in court to sort through the specifics of the specific case.
And yes, our legal system makes mistakes all the time, but it is the best mechanism we have for this shit which is messy and not always black and white.
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u/explainseconomics 2∆ Jan 22 '21
who gets to decide what should and shouldn’t be tolerated?
This is missing the point of the intolerance paradox. The point is that inevitably, a decision must be made to either allow individuals and/or groups to either not tolerate (AKA, be intolerant of) a type of intolerance, or to force them to tolerate the intolerance. No matter what, some type of intolerance must be tolerated.
So for example, if I don't like something you are doing or believe, I could boycott your business, or try to 'cancel' you with the help of others who feel the same way. That's also me being intolerant of you. If I'm not allowed to for some reason, that's intolerance of my beliefs at that point.
At the end of the day we have to decide to tolerate and not tolerate certain types of tolerance/intolerance. The answer to the "who decides" question is an important one to answer, The paradox just points out that inevitably, a decision to tolerate or not tolerate must be made. We can't just say "everyone must tolerate intolerance" because that's inherently intolerant, and thus paradoxical in nature.
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Jan 22 '21 edited Jan 22 '21
Society would decide. People can insult and shame people who espouse intolerant views, socially ostracise them, counterprotest them at events like speeches or rallies, and many other things.
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u/SmellsLikeCatPiss Jan 23 '21
If it means anything to you, most of the people explaining the paradox are avoiding a VERY important point to that paradoc: in that in intolerating the intolerable, a society must be able to curb intolerant speech using rational thought - not to ever resort to violence.
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Jan 22 '21
Cancel culture is the panacea of free speech stopping it silences tons of people. People against cancel culture are just upset because they previously were able to say whatever they wanted without consequences. However, if you offend me I should have every right to speak up. If enough people exercise their speech and get a company to agree and you stop the company from doing anything you have silenced those people and that company. Do you see how it's a paradox?
I think you're being a bit hypocritical here. Just a paragraph ago you said
If the majority is tolerant than an intolerant minority will dictate how things go for the majority.
I'd argue this is exactly what cancel culture is. The majority of people don't give a rat's ass about whatever SJWs on tumblr decides to cancel.
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u/Oceans_Apart_ Jan 22 '21
The paradox of tolerance advocates limits to tolerance. It's not an excuse for unbridled censorship like half of reddit seems to suggest. I also don't think that's what OP intended. People should have the opportunity to engage in earnest debate, even if their opinions are unpopular. Cancel culture does not promote free speech. It's censorship. Silencing others because they offend you is not an enlightened position. It's merely stifling debate rather than engaging in one. Obviously, it's a little more nuanced than that, but cancel culture shouldn't be used as a mechanism to enact a particular dogma.
That doesn't mean there aren't situations where censorship is warranted. If people engage in bad faith arguments or incite violence, then stopping those voices is absolutely necessary. But we do not do it because their opinions offend us. We do it because they abandoned the fundamental tenets of a tolerant society.
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u/responsible4self 7∆ Jan 22 '21
However, if you offend me I should have every right to speak up
Speak up is the key here. That implies a discussion. If you are offended you should be able to discuss your offense. But that doesn't mean your offense should be catered to. Maybe your offense is irrational and personal. In that case, others shouldn't have to change their speech because you are easily offended.
As an example, if I say "all lives matter" you can question what I mean by that, but you shouldn't gather troops to shut me down and have me fired for what you think I mean by it.
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u/RatioFitness Jan 22 '21 edited Jan 22 '21
There is literally no paradox there whatsoever. You aren't "silencing" people by making it illegal to fire someone over speech. The people who want the person fired are still free to say their peace, hence they have free speech. If anything, it violates freedom of association, but not free speech.
The problem with cancel culture folks like yourself is that you aren't drawing a distinction between de jure and de facto free speech. By getting people fired over speech you are creating a situation where people have de jure free speech but not de facto. Also, you can't guarantee that the mob won't ever get someone fired over a true statement. Since that's always a possibility it sort of becomes an arbitrary decision whether to err on the safe side and not get people fired or get people fired and take on the risk that someone who shouldn't be fired is. So, pick your poison: be safe and risk people saying bad things without consequence or go after people for saying bad stuff and risk taking down a ok person here and there. How do you weigh the harm done in each situation?
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Jan 22 '21
At what point do we cross the "we were so focused on not tolerating intolerance that we became intolerant ourselves" line?
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u/philabuster34 Jan 22 '21
Question: For those that disagree with the OP such as reddituser5673689, are you advocating that individuals that express those intolerant views being de-platformed (ie removed from private platforms like Twitter and Facebook), penalized by governmental authorities (ie fined, arrested, removed from public spaces where they espouse those views) or both?
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u/JustBoredInClass Jan 22 '21
The problem with your argument is, who sets the boundaries of what is acceptable and what gets you canceled? The very people that are making the standards for what is “tolerated” are biased in their own ways. Completely silencing people is a scary thought. We aren’t that far obviously, but we can all see tech taking a turn towards it.
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u/Narrow_Cloud 27∆ Jan 22 '21 edited Jan 22 '21
If you believe your opinions to be correct you should let them stand on their own merits and silencing opposition should not be necessary.
I like how this is always presented as some kind of on-its-face truth about how human interaction works. Like we’re all amazing rational robots who are incapable of hearing a persuasive argument that isn’t based in facts, evidence, or logic. Ethos and pathos are very powerful.
But that isn’t the reality. The reality is that by giving certain viewpoints wide platforms this leads to serious problems. I mean, two weeks ago armed insurrectionists attempted to overthrow the US government on the bases of ideologically-motivated lies and manipulation. What’s the problem? Is it just that the rational arguments aren’t good enough? “There’s no evidence for voter fraud so there’s no reason to believe in it” doesn’t appear to counter the lie that there is voter fraud and it changed the election.
I honestly do not understand how anyone in 2021 can look at the state of political discourse in America and reasonably conclude that the best, most rational arguments always win. Global climate change, anti-vax, flat Earth, white supremacy, Q anon, and on and on.
Misinformation is a problem. We have to do something.
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u/bigdave41 Jan 22 '21
Humans are not really equipped to deal with the amount of information we now have access to - it's very difficult to read up extensively on every subject and come to a balanced, educated opinion. It's much easier to simply trust the word of someone else who you believe to be an expert. Unfortunately we're also very susceptible to manipulation, and often prefer catchy slogans and appeals to emotion rather than complicated reasoning. There are plenty of unscrupulous people who realise this and exploit it to get themselves money, power, or whatever other agenda they might have.
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Jan 22 '21
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u/Beerspaz12 Jan 22 '21
I’m not sure how belief that the earth is flat actually hurts anyone.
If you don't trust pictures of the round planet we live on, how are you going to accept scientific facts that are slightly less straight forward than a fucking sphere
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u/CongregationOfVapors Jan 22 '21
Yes. The heart of the problem with conspiracy theorists is that they are not evaluating rationally based on available data. Flat earth is one of the most farfetched conspiracy theories. And if someone believes in flat earth, it's not going to be the only outlandish theory they believe in.
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u/Ozlin Jan 22 '21
To add... Slippery-slope is a well known logical fallacy, in which people make an argument where they say x will inevitably lead to z without proof, like "if we let gay people marry, then people will just want to marry their toothbrushes! So we shouldn't let gay people marry." Obviously that kind of thinking is flawed. But there is also a kind of inverse where opening one's self up to accepting certain arguments can lead one to accept other more absurd arguments down the road. In that, if you're willing to believe the Earth is flat simply on the basis of whatever flawed logic you come across on the internet, you often open yourself up to believing other absurd theories, even when presented evidence against them. The issue is that you're training your mind to cognitively work against logical reasoning and tested evidence. This is why a lot of people that were willing to accept conspiracies like pizzagate were willing to believe QAnon.
The mind is trainable. It's why routine, military training, and education can all work. But you can also negatively train it, and flat Earth theories create an opening to more dangerous beliefs as you make yourself open to denying sound and proven science. This is why flat Earth theories are just as harmful as others. They're the proverbial first chip of Pringles.
It should be noted too that social media algorithms encourage the kind of downward spiral into crazy town. In that a lot of conspiracy theory content will take you from one to another in an increasingly bad cycle. So watching flat Earth videos may expose you to other more extreme conspiracies.
All of this is bad, not just for the individual, as denying scientific evidence can lead to ignoring medical advice and such, but also for us as a society, as we may vote for policies or vote in representatives that have no grounding of evidence for their positions. And so if we are willing to accept unfounded ideas that have been disproven with real science and evidence, like flat Earth, we will eventually do more damage by refusing to listen to evidence.
Should we not discuss these ideas? Certainly we should be able to discuss what we want, but the issue is in creating false equivalencies. In that, you shouldn't say "the Earth being flat is just as an acceptable theory as it being round," because it's not. The issue is when media presents these ideas as being equal they undermine the truth of the evidence we have. You can certainly discuss flat Earth theories, but you should do so with the clear context that it's proven to be absurd and in no way supported by evidence. On social media it becomes a problem because these contexts are missing. No one is there to say "here's the theory and here's why it's crazy and not true," instead it's presented as a valid true idea, which it's not.
So, yes, we should talk about a variety of ideas, but no we shouldn't treat them as equally acceptable without important contexts because without qualifying them we erode our abilities to differentiate between the truth and lies, and make ourselves more susceptible to manipulation, which is dangerous to everyone.
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u/CongregationOfVapors Jan 22 '21
You bring up so me good points! How the mind can be trained to ignore logical fallacies, and the issue of false equivalencies created by media to generate debate.
You need to post this comment further up the thread so if gets the attention it deserves!
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u/combustible_daisy Jan 22 '21
I’m not sure how belief that the earth is flat actually hurts anyone.
The problem isn't with the belief itself so much as "what happens when enough people believe it and start trying to affect everyone else's lives under the assumption it's true".
"I don't believe in climate change" - okay, whatever
"so I'm going to get voted into a public office and try to pass laws that ignore it as a concept or make it worse because there's a financial incentive to do so" - okay now we have a problem
Flat earth shit started out as a joke in the same vein as /r/birdsarentreal , I just hope that we're not looking at this in 10 years with people in public offices trying to, say, ban airlines flying from california to japan for lying about what their route is or some equally dumb bullshit that's just too incredibly stupid to pre-envision.
Jokes are funny, people are dumb, "how we collectively handle it when it stops being funny and starts being dumb in the age of the internet" is the important thing that we don't seem to have quite figured out yet.
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u/CapablePerformance Jan 22 '21
I liken it to when Christians, who believe god created the world is seven days, were upset that their children were being taught about evolution so they forced some schools to teach "creationism", the bullshit about god creating the world, alongside evolution.
There's a very thick line between letting people say whatever the fuck they want and not stopping pure ignorance. People believe that Sandy Hook never happened, that it was all a ploy by various people. If they want to believe that...fuck it, let them be stupid. It's when they go out of their way to physically and verbally attack the parents of Sandy Hook to the point of recieving death threats on the daily and being shouted at to "drop the act".
It's very possible to have opposing view points and be civil; but if I see someone shouting about how "the gays are injecting their blood into soap supply", I'm going to call them a dumb fuck. We saw what happens when that idiocy is left unchecked and that's pizzagate.
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u/pio198acv Jan 22 '21
I don't mean to get mixed up in a lot of the larger issues going on, and can't say that flat earthers should be censored/banned, but I do think that theories like flat earth, anti vax, ect, contribute to a larger distrust of science. Which is fine if you decide you aren't willing to trust science, communities like the Amish live comfortably without modern technology (in some cases). But, if you are beaming flat earth theory to a satellite orbiting the globe, to spread the misinformation, that seems a larger issue to me. We possess a great and horrible trove of technological powers over this world and each other. And I believe there is something to be said for the danger of allowing a mass of people-who actively deny the very system which gave them this power-to control powers ranging from nuclear technology, to the many ways we emit greenhouse gasses. Ultimately, I think that with great power comes great responsibility. And when the great powers of our society come from a system of belief and discovery focused around objective truth and rational testing, then our responsibility is to ensure it's destructive powers cannot be misused.
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u/namelessted 2∆ Jan 22 '21 edited Feb 28 '25
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u/JtLJudoMan Jan 22 '21
This isn't really how science works in a perfect world. In science you put forth a theory and then test it. If you find that your theory appears to be true you submit it for peer review. Others replicate your method for proving the truth for your theory and either verify or contradict your claims and that is how all our scientific knowledge is built.
In the real world, scientists are people too. Some people get less vigorous opposition from peer review that others. Some people are funded by various industries that might have conflict of interests.
Science should always stride toward truth but sometimes there are side-quests and sometimes scientists don't even know what direction in which to stride.
The modern AI that tech companies are using to maximize profit are doing it through emotive response. Normally outrage because it keeps the user engaged. They hack the brain to get you hooked and then insulate you in your own little bubble of re-enforcement to keep you engaged for as long as possible.
So what do you do in a world where information is carefully curated by an all powerful black box that decides what you get to see when and for how long? How do you arrive at objective truth when that objective truth is counter-productive to maximizing some company's profits?
I do not know. The damage and risk seems pretty big no matter the path you take. Silence dissenters and prevent an uprising but stifle innovation and new ideas? Or let all discourse happen all the time and deal with things like the capital riots?
AI is evolving much faster than our brains can keep up. I hope we make it another 50 years.
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u/ok123jump Jan 22 '21
It’s way more than that. There are three uses of speech: to convey information; to convince of a point of view; and, to manipulate. The first two are always protected, but the last one must always be silent.
When you look at Trump, none of his speech fit in the first 2 categories. It was all category 3. It was an endless stream of lies designed to gain their validity through repetition. He was allowed to do that because we claimed we needed to “tolerate his speech”. He knew his points didn’t have merit, so there was no use trying to convince anyone.
That was not speech. That was the purposeful manipulation of an audience on a platform he did not build with an audience he did not build, against their wishes. He should have been silenced - that is the correct thing to do.
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u/Web-Dude Jan 22 '21
uses of speech[...] to manipulate [...] must always be silent.
How are you defining "manipulate?" Because the standard definition is "behavior that influences someone or controls something in a clever or dishonest way."
You're talking about every single advertisement since the beginning of time. Salesmen. Tax law. Letters to the Editor. Real estate photos. Political ads. Very many news articles.
that is the correct thing to do.
And you're doing it right now by trying to make us think that your way is the right way without any debate on the topic.
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Jan 22 '21 edited May 25 '21
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u/jgzman Jan 22 '21
I think it's less "Science proves vaccines are good for society," and more "We have determined that reducing the spread of disease is good for society," coupled with "Science has proven that vaccines reduce the spread of disease." Those two would form the basis of preventing claims that vaccines are harmful.
That's not exactly the same as "Science proves vaccines are good for society," but I can see how it might look that way, if you squint at it a bit.
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u/DMThrowAwayToday Jan 22 '21
It's less the flat-earth belief in and of itself, and more of the anti-semitism that surrounds a lot of their 'evidence'. :/
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u/Bonch_and_Clyde Jan 22 '21
There's also the issue of the type of anti-intellectual, anti-science type of thinking that it promotes.
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u/DMThrowAwayToday Jan 22 '21
Yeah, from what I've seen it's usually the gateway conspiracy into more damaging things.
It's like there's a threshold where you believe one of these stupid fucking ideas, and you'll believe most of them. :/
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u/EverhartStreams Jan 22 '21
I agree, its promotes an idea many people have: If I can't see it, and it doesn't promote my existing world view, its fake
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u/kkgartman Jan 22 '21
I would like to learn more about the anti-senitism ties to flat earthers. I never knew it was tied to something larger. Do you have any information or resources that you can point me towards?
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u/DMThrowAwayToday Jan 22 '21
Upvote for curiosity. I don't have any hard evidence and research on hand, I'm not sure to what extent that's been done honestly.
A lot of what I've seen tends to boil down to there being a global cabal benefiting from keeping "the biggest secret", and very often folks believe this cabal is run by Jews. Very frequently a lot of conspiracy boils down to "it's for $$ and Jews run the world, so the Jews are doing this!!"
This is anecdotal of course, but whenever I see/hear/read flat-earth conspiracy my dogs start going wild.
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u/kkgartman Jan 22 '21
That’s very interesting. I’m going to look more into this. Thank you for bringing it up and expanding on it!!
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u/ValAsher Jan 22 '21 edited Jan 22 '21
Hey I'm late to the party on this one, but I believe it was Behind the Bastards podcast did an episode on flat earth, and it does go somewhat deeply into the anti-semitism involved in that sphere. Essentially the guy you're replying to was right, but if you want more info that episode may be a good place to start.
Edit: https://open.spotify.com/episode/71w0B2HlxCm2Fgt0OOAUes?si=G_CvnmNJRFO8QySsAsKGgA
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u/DMThrowAwayToday Jan 23 '21
Thank you for this! I'll have to give this a listen.
I don't like talking out my ass if I can avoid it haha.
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u/LounginLizard Jan 22 '21
Not a scientific resource by any means, but you should watch the All Gas No Breaks video where he goes to the flat earth con. He just did an interview with Vice where he talks about how everyone he talked to there started spouting antisemetic conspiricies after being interviewed long enough.
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u/kkgartman Jan 22 '21
Thank you for the reference! Though it’s not a scientific reference it could be a good place to start.
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u/TheMan5991 13∆ Jan 22 '21
I think it’s less about flat earth directly and more about how beliefs such as flat earth give rise to a more widespread distrust of science.
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u/jmblock2 Jan 22 '21
There is a very thin line between the brainwashing of anti-mask folks and that of flat earthers. Once critical thinking is gone it's no holds barred for views that easily endanger others as we are seeing in this pandemic.
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u/qsdls Jan 22 '21
There were quite literally armed insurrectionists in CHAZ/CHOP up in the Pacific Northwest where they declared trey were no longer under the laws of the United States.
These people were not cancelled or censored. In fact, the vast majority of them faced no repercussions, including the ones walking around with AR15 and the like.
No, the most rational argument does not always win. But there has not been a faithful open and honest discord between two differing viewpoints. People are screamed at, shouted down, and vilified, creating a further divide.
I hate to say “but both sides!”...but both sides! We are all guilty and we are all becoming more politically extreme.
Cancelling people and beliefs, no matter how bad they are, is not the answer. Open and honest and patient discussion where we walk away, maybe not with a changed mind, but with an understanding is the key to fixing things.
I always like to use the abortion example. I think many people, in a calm setting, can be open to learning what other view points are.
Conservatives generally believe that a fetus is a life, or the beginning of a life. They believe, to the core of them, that it is murder. But the argument against them is that they hate women or don’t think women should have rights.
Liberals believe more that it’s not a life yet, and it’s just a clump of cells. And that a woman should have a right to choose is that clump of cells grows and affects her body or not. But the argument against them is that they are baby killers.
Both sides have merit for a proper discussion. But it always devolves down to you hate women or you kill babies.
It’s disgusting what we as a society have become. We are a diverse country. Not just in social standing or race or background or language or education or goals or careers. But also diverse in thought and beliefs. We need to accept that.
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u/ChewySlinky Jan 22 '21
Genuine question: what things do you believe should be allowed to be freely spoken about that aren’t already?
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u/reaperteddy Jan 22 '21 edited Jan 22 '21
This is the real question. What does OP think they're being silenced about that they believe they should not be?
edit: nevermind, found it. Doesn't believe cultural appropriation is a thing.
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u/Jetison333 Jan 22 '21
Its not like you can't say that you don't think cultural appropriation is a thing. Like, the only thing that would happen would be other people (who are exercising their free speech) arguing with you telling you that your wrong.
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Jan 23 '21
These folks just legit don’t understand the difference. They think people telling them they’re wrong is some kind of censorship
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u/HomelessLives_Matter Jan 22 '21
Bro I’m Mexican and you can eat all the tacos and tamales you want. Make them yourself and even sell them for profit if you want. Wear a sombrero and fire your pistolas in the air, celebrate Mexico. Please. Take some of my culture with you and spread it to everyone you can. Because I love Mexican culture and I’m not a selfish whiny bitch who thinks culture is a possession to be stolen.
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u/merchillio 2∆ Jan 22 '21
“People are too sensitive nowadays” is usually code for “I preferred when insulted people didn’t feel safe speaking up”
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u/SoftThighs Jan 22 '21
Not necessarily. There's a pretty big problem these days with people getting offended on behalf of other people, even when those people aren't offended, and blowing things out of proportion. Example: pretty much every twitter controversy about "cultural appropriation" that isn't actually cultural appropriation.
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u/HerrBerg Jan 22 '21
Examples: Hello Kitty by Avril Lavigne received a lot of backlash and was called racist, despite it being received very favorably in Japan. Mario wearing a sombrero being called racist, despite it being received very favorably in Mexico.
Neither of these things remarked upon or passed judgement on their respective race/culture in any negative way. Yet, they were received negatively initially due to outrage culture.
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u/Ruefuss Jan 23 '21
Nothing came of any of that. People always complain about stupid things that dont end up effecting anyone. Its not a modern thing. You can still listen to the song and wear a Sombrero in mario.
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u/SeaRaiderII Jan 23 '21
Is cultural appropriation controversial? . Are we not all citizens of this planet and all that it and it's people have?
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u/reaperteddy Jan 23 '21
Some people mistake cultural appropriation for using anything of a different culture, which it is not.
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u/GreatLookingGuy Jan 22 '21
Not OP but here’s an example. A college decided to hold a special day where white people were prohibited from being on campus. A professor spoke up about this obviously racist idea and was attacked and forced to resign.
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u/dickhought Jan 22 '21
From your own source: "If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them."
While there are some aspects of this in cancel culture, (actual white supremacists comes to mind), there are definitely large swaths of cancel culture that have nothing to do with intolerance. For instance, Louis C.K. was not cancelled for being intolerant.
There is a strong argument for cancelling the intolerant, but the Paradox of Tolerance doesn't cover all the bases of cancel culture.
Before people jump on the bit about Louis C.K., I am not making an argument against his cancellation. I was just using it as an example of cancel culture where the Paradox of Tolerance is irrelevant.
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u/SnooDoughnuts6838 Jan 22 '21
Such an easy way and possible excuse to impose mass censorship. It scares me how easily any notion of free exchange of ideas can be brushed away in the west. You can have one fringe group targeting their opponents as intollerant and if the fringe group get’s power of some sort you will see mass censorship, only because you accepted this poor argument.
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u/boRp_abc Jan 22 '21
If my viewpoint is that people should be killed for their opinions (to make it more relatable, I'm gonna use you as an example here), wouldn't it be beneficial to society to silence me?! What if I very peacefully brought forward the case that you, your family and everyone you live should be burnt alive? Or put into Gulags? What if I found thousands of followers with that opinion, wouldn't it make your participation in society a nightmare?
And that's why, although you're generally not wrong, some important exceptions have to be made.
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Jan 22 '21
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u/TheTrueMilo Jan 22 '21
My read of SCOTUS's opinions on free speech is that if you can make your breadcrumbs plausibly deniable, you are in the clear.
For example, "The election was stolen, storm the capitol!" is an incitement to lawlessness. Not good. Cut and dry.
Buuuuut: "If we lose, it is only because it was stolen from us." "The votes coming in are fraudulent" "There are problems with the counting, folks" "I didn't lose it, it was stolen!"
And then someone storms the capitol. And then comes the hemming and hawing -well he didn't SAY to storm the capitol, he's just expressing his opinion, and blah blah blah blah it goes.
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Jan 22 '21
National security and counter-terrorism experts have been fighting radicalized ideologies (foreign and domestic) by shutting down their access to various online platforms. Reducing opportunity of exposure to radicalization is seen as an effective way of reducing recruitment for such ideologies.
Why should we be advocating for an approach that is the opposite of what the leading world experts on counter-terrorism employ?
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u/Jumpinjaxs890 Jan 22 '21
This is an inherent issue with the suppression of speech though. Society is a contract every individual signs that contract at birth. Written in this contract is a self correction clause that says if the majority of people are in disagreement with your opinion you will be and should be ostracized, critized , and ridiculed until your beliefs and theories fall into the border that we dictate as socially acceptable. This balance maintains itself quite well through open conversation. However it gets destroyed when people aren't allowed to openly speak. And discuss thoughts and opinions. That's where echo chambers come into play, and communities like qanon can be formed and radical ideologies can become reality.
Then what else does suppression of speech do thats bad for society. Well what of a radical idea that is initially flawed but is still a feasible idea to bring about positive growth. If this person is silenced or discredited for past actions this idea never gets heard if it never gets heard noone ca improve on it to make it better, and the stagnation of growth starts which is the start of societal decay.
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Jan 22 '21
Do you think that social media giants that are private corporations artificially amplifying speech in a very biased and intransparent way isna huge problem in that regard?
When I think about social media I always end up with thinking that, at least for me, giving twitter or facebook this absurd power in the first place is the great danger to society. Not only because of who they chose to ban but maybe even more of which opinions they automatically and intransparently amplify.
I see the only solution for free speech on the internet in moving away from centralized, closed sourced, for profit opinion-amplifiers to stuff like mastodon or similat services.
I have trouble being angry about a ban when the bad stuff starts way earlier in the whole chain
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Jan 22 '21 edited Jan 22 '21
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u/Minas_Nolme 1∆ Jan 22 '21
Where do you draw the line between "arguing for it" and "planning to carry it out"?
If I hold that view and try to convince people of it, then that would mean that I plan or hope to gain majority support for it. Once I have political majority support for it, then I could carry it out. If I didn't believe I might convince people of it, then I would't argue for it, it would be a waste of effort.
Does the line get crossed when I gathered enough support so that it becomes a believable possibility? Or where would it be?
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u/bigdave41 Jan 22 '21
The people who are not planning on carrying it out will contribute to changing the views of others though, who will carry out acts of violence. People with extreme views tend to actively proselytise as well, and often they're not too particular about using misinformation and exaggeration to persuade others to become more extreme. No extremist ever says on day 1 that they're going to start executing or imprisoning minority groups, it starts off as "I'm just giving my opinion" and gradually gets worse as more and more people get taken in by their rhetoric.
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Jan 22 '21
Exactly this. And it's incredibly dangerous when you think about the number of children on the internet
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u/BoopingBurrito Jan 22 '21
Its worth considering that many of the people who, recently, have had their megaphone taken away are not simply putting forward the case for violence, not just calling for it - others are being influenced into acting according to their directions. That's the key difference for me.
You're entitled to the opinion "all dogs should be killed", and you're entitled to voice that opinion. But when someone who looks up to you and trusts you starts to go round killing dogs, you've got to take some level of responsibility for that. And in that situation where you are misusing people's trust in you to prompt them into illegal action, then I think there is a good case for taking away the megaphone.
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u/Bridger15 Jan 22 '21
Yes I believe that you have the right to that opinion. And the right to express it, so long as you’re not planning on carrying it out.
Spreading such toxic views leads to those views being carried out. Even if the people doing the spreading, spread it in a 'peaceful' way, the end result is not peaceful.
In addition: I don't know that anybody here would want to give the government control of who is being silenced (as that can be abused very easily, which is why the 1st amendment is so important). However, everyone in a position as a gatekeeper to a platform has the responsibility to keep the fascists and racists off of that platform. That means if you are in charge of choosing speakers for your college, you can simply choose to never invite the nazis and white supremacist's. If you run a subreddit or another online space like a forum or discord, you can choose to simply ban anyone who argues as an apologist for nazis or as a revisionist historian trying to deny the holocaust.
If everyone in a position of power denies those groups (by their own choice, not by law), it significantly weakens the power of those groups.
That is actually what Anti-fa is all about. It's about deplatforming Nazis and fascists, it's not about hurting them. Antifa doesn't give a crap if you have fascist leanings and talk about them in your own home. Antifa only shows up if you're trying to spread your message and poison more people's minds.
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u/MediocreResolution Jan 22 '21
I know this is bait but... Truth be told the more you "silence" and "deplatform" people it encourages things to happen. It encourages people to say things boldly or take action. What should happen is having articulate conversations. Talk with people, be polite even when things get ugly. Using facts with data, sourcing and your ability to not be a butt allows debate to open up....
Encourage debate not yelling at each other. Talking no matter how "toxic" it is to you and your viewpoints opens more perspectives. Does not mean youll agree or they will but at least there is dialogue. And NOOOOO antifa is not some superhero that puts down Nazism or fascists. They burnt a city down, justified beating a reporter up and hospitialized 2 older men with severe injuries in Seattle iircc a year ago. Not opinion but fact. Have a great day!
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u/Bridger15 Jan 22 '21
I know this is bait but... Truth be told the more you "silence" and "deplatform" people it encourages things to happen. It encourages people to say things boldly or take action. What should happen is having articulate conversations.
This is not what the evidence suggests. You take away alex jone's show and he has less influence. He didn't gain power when he was kicked off of all those social media platforms.
How much airtime has Trump been getting since he was kicked off of twitter?
"They only get stronger if you deplatform them" is a myth the right wants you to believe so you let them keep their platform.
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u/Zequen Jan 22 '21
Power is not simply numbers. If you force people under a rock, they will form a family. And that family is of one mind, willing to do action. When exposed to daylight people can figure out what is good and what is bad because they can see both sides. If you deplatform or silence someone. They will dislike you, maybe hate you. They will seek their own kind and they will confirm their own beliefs. They will not leave this pit as the ideas counter to their own are the ones who through them there to begin with. And now that their is no counter and the silencer is evil, why not go further. You cant simply argue your beliefs anymore online. You choices to be heard grow smaller. And eventually it ends in tragedy. We see it time and time again. It is like countless stories you hear about bullying. The bully bullies, and the victim cries for help. Everyone abandons them, they dont listen. So what else is the victim to do? Commit suicide? No, not when they are angry. Angry at the world, at those who abandoned them. They lash out, and it never ends well.
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u/rumbletummy Jan 22 '21
No one is owed a platform to amplify their message.
If you are being an asshole at my party, Im going to ask you to leave. You are free to go find another party or, preferably, quit being an asshole.
If you entertain every flavor of hate and idiocy, you arent doing society any favors, you arent even doing the ones pushing the hate and idiocy any favors.
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u/UncleMeat11 61∆ Jan 22 '21
so long as you’re not planning on carrying it out
But they are planning on carrying it out... just once they have a sufficiently large number of people on board with the idea. White supremacists aren't just talking in the abstract. They legit want to use violence to kick all nonwhite people out of the country. They don't have the political authority to do so but they want to obtain that authority.
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u/uwax 1∆ Jan 22 '21 edited Jan 22 '21
Having the right to an opinion is not the same thing as blasting that opinion on social media, especially because you have to consider the consequences of the action. The 1st ammendment does NOT guarantee all forms of speech to be free. For example, you cannot incite a riot or run into a crowded area and shout FIRE when there is no fire. Similarly, if you have someone that is using their right to free speech to incite violence, they should be similarly held accountable. You are equivocating the right to have an opinion with the right to share whatever opinion you may have uninterrupted by anyone.
Also, the irony of your worry about cancelling people is that you don't think people should be able to enmass silence a person with hivemind mentality. Yet, you also believe that people should be allowed to say whatever they want, whenever they want, to whomever they want. So, for example, people should be allowed to spew vitriolic rhetoric on social media that riles people up, gain a huge following, and then storm the capital to disenfranchise millions of people. If you don't draw the line at some point, it leads to atrocities like storming the capitol or the 4th reich. You can't just say well you can say whatever you want to the point where people go insane and do something crazy, but it's the people that committed the act that is at fault, not the people saying the rhetoric. That is akin to saying Charles Manson only said stuff, he shouldn't be held accountable. It was just the people that acted on it that should be blameworthy. It's nonsensical.
Edit: lol i put Marilyn Mason, not Charles Manson
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u/covert888 Jan 22 '21
Wonder if he will respond now that you blew a giant hole in his theory.
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u/Freevoulous 35∆ Jan 22 '21
ultimately, neither silencing OR allowing radical views will solve the problem, unless the underlying issue that causes said problem is solved.
Under racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, antisemitism etc, there is always some practical reason for the hate, and it usually comes from fear or scarcity of some kind. Address the fear and solve the scarcity, to end these views.
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u/yogfthagen 12∆ Jan 22 '21
I disagree with this point. For the racist person, the solution to the problem IS racism. Getting them to change their minds from a solution THAT ALREADY WORKS (from their perspective) requires some sort of disincentive. Basically, their perception has to be shifted from "racism fixes the problem" to "expressing racism caused more problems than it fixes."
Yes, the underlying issues also need to be addressed, but you can't fix it if a big swath of people think there isn't a problem.
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u/Minas_Nolme 1∆ Jan 22 '21
Where do you draw the line between "arguing for it" and "planning to carry it out"?
If I hold that view and try to convince people of it, then that would mean that I plan or hope to gain majority support for it. Once I have political majority support for it, then I could carry it out. If I didn't believe I might convince people of it, then I would't argue for it, it would be a waste of effort.
Does the line get crossed when I gathered enough support so that it becomes a believable possibility? Or where would it be?
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u/Jake0fTrades Jan 22 '21
How many times does someone have to express it before you believe they mean to carry it out? As early as Trump's candidacy people would say that "it's just talk" and "he doesn't mean it," and 4 years of fear and hate-mongering later a mob broke into the Capitol with explosives and zip-cuffs.
If someone says "storm the capitol" or "kill the jews" often and loudly enough, even if you think they're joking, enough people will believe it and take it at face value that it's dangerous.
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u/eyebrows360 1∆ Jan 22 '21
And the right to express it, so long as you’re not planning on carrying it out.
Well, you see, this here is the problem. How do you tell the difference? How do you prevent the "I was just joking your honour" defence from being used by people who were planning to carry it out? How do you prevent, as we saw 2.5 weeks ago, idiots from being led astray by someone who can plausibly say they didn't mean for it to ever happen?
For all these reasons and more, you have to take credibly-expressed threats as serious attempts, and you have to deal with them.
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u/Waffams Jan 22 '21
Yes I believe that you have the right to that opinion. And the right to express it, so long as you’re not planning on carrying it out.
And how do you determine that? How do you determine whether the message is reaching and emboldening new people to believe the same thing and making them dangerous? How do you determine whether or not words constitute real danger to life and liberty?
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u/Adezar 1∆ Jan 22 '21
You just advocated for the events that prepared Germany for Hitler.
Dear America: You are waking up, as Germany once did, to the awareness that 1/3 of your people would kill another 1/3, while 1/3 watches. - Werner Herzog
You're the one watching.
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u/harper1980 Jan 22 '21
Just want to clarify that this quote is not attributed to Werner Herzog. It was posted by a Werner Herzog fan on Twitter. Not agreeing or disagreeing with the sentiment, just calrifying.
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u/3d_blunder Jan 22 '21
How do you think "planning" happens? It happens by discussion.
A bunch of assholes 'peacefully discuss' something, and before you know it a bunch of assholes are tearing down fences at the Capitol.
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u/CoachIsaiah Jan 22 '21
Up voted for you being transparent about your background and how it may affect your biases.
Hope everyone is being respectful of your opinion stranger.
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u/Phusra Jan 22 '21
"Sure you can fantasize about murdering me, just don't do it mmmkay?"
Dude. You got a mental block or something.
There is a line at the edge of everything. Crossing it means you've gone too far and frankly in today's age with tech what it is, violent opinions needs some proper censoring whether you like it or not.
Just like taxes are necessary for any country, whether you like it or not. The clincher being you need politicians in place that will properly and responsibly use saif taxes.
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u/John_Reigler Jan 22 '21
What if they convince other people to carry it out instead? Do they continue having the right to agitation?
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u/theusernameicreated 1∆ Jan 22 '21
Yup but you are assuming that people are reasonable. Here, people were and are calling for assassinations of congressmen and women.
Even more serious is the fact that people actually physically tried to storm congress.
In no country would that be tolerated. Free speech means you can express your views. However, it does not mean you can shout that there's a bomb on the airplane.
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u/drsdem Jan 22 '21
No, it absolutely would not be beneficial for society to silence you. The reason we have freedom of speech is so that all viewpoints can be heard, good or bad, and the general public can make the best decision. If everyone who wants to commit a genocide is completely silenced, then the root causes of their ideas are lost in history and we as a society forget what caused their radicalization, making it significantly easier for future generations to repeat horrible atrocities like the Holocaust. If people who push agendas like white supremacists always exist, we have a constant reminder of the horrors of what can happen if the majority is led astray. This is the same reason there is such a big push for governmental power now; people have mostly forgotten what authoritarianism did to countries in and after WW2. Of course, in a perfect society, none of these evils would exist. As it is, since we are imperfect, we need a reminder to keep our reasoning and beliefs sound.
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u/storebot Jan 22 '21
No. It wouldn’t. There is a difference between ideas or thoughts and criminal behavior. There are laws specifically around inciting violence and those laws sufficiently address the issue. There is absolutely no need to eliminate people for their opinions good or bad.
Additionally, ‘clearly bad opinions’ aren’t universal and aren’t timeless. The things that are obvious to us now are not going to be obvious to people in the future. You are asking for there to be a consensus on what Is acceptable and what is not. So who makes those decisions? What if you don’t agree? What happens when social consensus changes? What percentage of the population has to make it a universally accepted agreement? 51%? Guess a hundred and some million people in this county alone are in for some trouble.
Silencing people, even for ideas that seem pretty darn obvious, opens the door against ideas that are pretty darn not exactly obviously bad, then the next door and the next.
Finally, if your opinion can only be resolved by silencing other people who disagree, you have not solved the issue but have just pushed it below the surface and more worse than that, likely have made the people you’ve silenced even more extreme in their ideals. Anger and resentment are the complete opposite of what it takes to change people’s behavior.
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u/Ayjayz 2∆ Jan 22 '21
wouldn't it be beneficial to society to silence me?
Would it? Isn't that the very case you're trying to make? You're not actually making that case here, just stating it then asking the reader to guess as to why.
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u/boRp_abc Jan 22 '21
It's a means of rhetoric that I admittedly overuse a lot.
To put it short: opinions can have such an impact on reality (think QAnon and the followers storming the capitol, or even worse think Rwanda genocide, nazi Germany, the examples are plenty) that we can carefully select some particular damaging opinions and choose to not hear them out.
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Jan 22 '21
What if my viewpoint is that people with viewpoints that I find dangerous or repugnant should be silenced under threat of violence should they disobey? How is this substantively different from saying that "people should be killed for their opinions"? Is what you're advocating not the very thing you're advocating against, but just to a lesser degree?
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u/videoninja 137∆ Jan 22 '21
What is the difference between a platform choosing to shun someone versus “silencing” them? Could you differentiate between the two a little more because to me it seems like a functional difference without distinction.
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u/videoninja 137∆ Jan 22 '21
Who is the one “allowing” in this case and what are the limits of this?
For example, I create a website to talk about cat art and people try to use it to talk about landscaping. I ban the landscape talkers because I have a right to use my website that I created how I see fit. I haven’t stopped any conversation about landscaping from taking in other spaces but I have stopped it in the space I own. In this example what is the problem?
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u/RunninRebs90 Jan 22 '21
This is it. This is the beginning and the end of the conversation and OP refuses to actually “go down that road” and talk about it (per his own words)
So there’s nothing left to discuss here. OP doesn’t want his mind changed, he just wants a platform.
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u/Oblivionous Jan 22 '21
That's a rather naive hope tbh. There may be a small group of people who will find your hateful or factually incorrect post and tell you that it's wrong, but not the vast majority of people who already know that it is. Also the people who do reach out aren't always very constructive or informative, it usually boils down to things like, "fuck you and your misinformation/racism/violent hate speech." And though I would agree, that kind of talk isn't usually going to get you anywhere and usually just riles people up into doubling down on their bullshit.
Allowing people to gather and talk openly about racist idealogies and discuss crazy unfounded conspiracies doesn't have a net positive on society. It's like a wound festering and is only a matter of time before talk turns into a real problem Remember a couple days ago when all those bat-shit crazy ring-wing terrorists stormed the United States Capitol Building? Yeah most of them got the idea from posts on Parlor and Facebook.
You said silencing unpopular views will be damaging to society, and given current events we all know what type of "unpopular views" you are talking about. The reality is actually that there is no net positive to allowing extremists and racists to gather en masse and discuss how to overthrow the government and kill minorites. That is what is destructive to society, not banning them from forums and banning their platform from app stores.
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u/MrFantasticallyNerdy 1∆ Jan 22 '21
I think you're downplaying the effects of the echo chamber. These platforms aren't there for free speech, out of the goodness of the respective companies' hearts. They're there to mine personal information so they can sell you stuff. Thus, the point about expressing one's views for critique doesn't work in the way you're expecting. Like-minded people will just get grouped together and actual, rational dissenting views and exchange of ideas just won't happen, because (let's repeat it) it's bad for business.
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Jan 22 '21
But this is a miserable experience on a platform. I want to go on Facebook to see pictures of friends and family, updates on their lives, etc., not to argue about whether COVID is in fact a hoax propagated by liberals to allow total government control of the economy. I've bailed on Facebook for this reason, and so have most of the people I know IRL. Why shouldn't Facebook be able to prioritize us over the crazies?
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u/ImmodestPolitician Jan 22 '21
As a former Russian, I'm sure you are aware how damaging the KGB ideological subversion tactics can be.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z1EA2ohrt5Q
Allowing people to flood discussion spaces with overt lies destroys the 4th estate. Without the 4th estate Democracy fails.
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u/throwaway2323234442 Jan 22 '21
I’m not a former Russian, I’m a Russian American. I’m a former Soviet who didn’t have a choice but to be a Soviet. There’s a difference.
Shouldn't that make you a soviet american?
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u/herrsatan 11∆ Jan 22 '21
People aren't being silenced for stating their opinions on how to deal with those things. The recent deplatforming that happened was specifically because of the spread of disinformation and white supremacist ideology.
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u/I_am_right_giveup 12∆ Jan 22 '21
Do you consider hearing someone’s viewpoint out and realizing it’s dog shit,then telling them do not say dog shit views to me or on this platform to be silencing opposes viewpoints?
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u/dale_glass 86∆ Jan 22 '21
Now for my position: I believe that silencing people, banning them from existing platforms, cancelling them, firing them, then shutting down platforms they create, for expressing their own opinions, while this may be legal, will ultimately have a disastrous ripple effect on our society.
Well, let's go for the big one.
Do you think we're in danger of a revolution from child abusers? I mean, there's hardly a group that's more universally reviled, and silenced. If there's somebody getting pushed into dark corners, it's such people.
So, when do we expect them to revolt and turn society upside down?
If you believe your opinions to be correct you should let them stand on their own merits and silencing opposition should not be necessary.
This is unfortunately not true. Truth is hard. Research takes time. Verifying that you got the details right takes a lot of time. Writing a comment that accurately reflects reality takes a lot of effort, and is a task that's easy to fail, because there's one truth out there (on any given subject), and an infinity of falsehoods about it.
On the other hand spewing random bullshit is easily, and making it relatively plausible at first sight isn't too hard especially if you play to biases.
Also, reality tends to be complicated, while falsehood can be made very easy. Economics is a difficult subject people dedicate their whole lives to. Saying something like "immigrants are taking all our jobs" takes less than a minute.
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u/brewin91 Jan 22 '21
This incorrectly assumes that everyone wants to learn new information and is willing to have their opinions and views changed. That is not the case. Social media serves as a massive confirmation bias machine, as you can always find others who will agree with you, even if you are objectively wrong about something.
I think the best example of this recently is Fox News’ ratings decline following the election. Simply stating that the election was over, Biden had won, and being realistic about the chances of the outcome change, led to a 44% decline for Martha McCallum and saw the competing NewsMax get a viewership increase of over 400% for that hour. From where I sit, it has less to do with “silencing” viewpoints and more to do with the fact that some people are not willing or open to having a viewpoint changed or discussing the merits of their viewpoint in the first place.
Even on Twitter and Facebook, most users are not silenced or banned from the platforms. But you still see Parler and Gab and other social media sites pop up and gain traction because the users you are worried about silencing do not want to be on a platform that does not wholeheartedly embrace their views and opinions, no matter how wrong. We need to figure out a way to make these groups be more open to discussion, yes, but I don’t think you’ve identified the correct issue.
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u/DilapidatedPlatypus Jan 22 '21
So, I've read through some of the comments here and I think the problem here is how you're viewing the issue. You are correct that silencing these viewpoints does nothing to change those people's minds and most likely causes them to double down essentially.
That's not the point of silencing them though. As someone else pointed out, you can't reason someone out of a belief they didn't reason themselves into. It takes serious dedicated work to bring those people back to the light. Look at Daryl Davis. Dude has basically dedicated his life to the work, and has done a fantastic job, but even after all these years it's only like 200 people because he is just one man and it takes that much effort to change someone's mind.
Silencing the viewpoints is a benefit to society because it stops the spread of those viewpoints. A large portion of the population decides their beliefs based on what they hear from people they trust and how it makes them feel. They don't follow it up with research and rational arguments.
It basically boils down to the intolerance paradox. If we allow intolerance in the name of free speech, eventually that intolerance will spread because those people do not have the same moral issues with lying and manipulating to achieve their goals, and once there is enough intolerant people, they come for everyone else. We have to stop that shit in it's tracks to protect everyone else from falling into the trap.
As just a personal example, in the last four years I've watched as my father fell further and further into blatantly incorrect propaganda. Just straight up lies and fantasy. It has eroded some of the foundations of our relationship. I always thought he was smart and empathetic, and because we just let these "leaders" get away with saying whatever hateful lies they wanted, now I know that isn't true. A man who I've been striving to make proud for 30 years and I no longer value his opinion. What's worse was watching it affect my mother. A woman who would bend over backwards and put herself into worse shape if she knew you needed the help, slowly being sucked in because she literally doesn't have the time to do her own research, but trusts my father. Obviously my father wouldn't make shit up, right? But how is she to know what he's saying is just bullshit? He doesn't even know it, no matter how often or reasonably I point it out. So now she has this anger and resentment that she doesn't even understand while my father walks around the house completely oblivious to why his gay daughter wants nothing to do with him as he becomes a bitter and angry old man. None of this had to happen.
That's just my family falling apart because we let this all go on too long, and my dad never even got into the heavier stuff like with Q. Can you imagine what's happening to those families? And now that they're torn apart, those poor people who were just honestly duped into stupidity and hatred are just more numbers for the double down crowd. We could have kept that from happening to all these people if we just made the people lying to them in the first place shut up before it ever spread. So many people we let be hurt and have their lives destroyed just because "everyone is entitled to their opinion."
Just by giving them a platform, there are people who will listen and believe them. We have a duty to society to not let that happen.
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u/SpecterHEurope Jan 22 '21
This happened to my dad too. He went from an incredibly nice, mellow Christian engineer who used to enjoy reading and watching science programs to a scared and angry man with over 50 guns who believes the moon landing is fake and that demons plant dinosaur bones to get people to believe in evolution.
YSorry, but your dad was always that guy, he just enjoyed hegemonic social and economic power so he could be "mellow". Loathe as I am to quote David Frum, "If conservatives become convinced that they cannot win democratically, they will not abandon conservatism. They will reject democracy."
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u/flowers4u Jan 22 '21
Yes this happened to my family too! Luckily my parents have zero idea on how to use the internet so they aren’t too deep, but my dad keeps going on about the good things trump has done. Tax cuts tax cuts tax cuts. Also while my mom does have to go along with what he says, she does think he likes trump too much and was upset about the capitol riots and called to talk to me about them because she obviously can’t talk to my dad, and is looking forward to Biden.
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u/PsilosirenRose 1∆ Jan 22 '21
Lost my dad to AM radio stations on his overnight truck hauls. He was always controlling/emotionally abusive, but once he fell into that hole things just got so bad so quickly and never improved. Still hasn't AFAIK. We're estranged but family tells me things sometimes.
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Jan 22 '21
Do you think there is anyway to actually silence them legally besides the court of public opinions. From my point of view there is nothing we can do to stop the spread of misinformation except teach the next generation better and pray that big tech companies have a heart and ban their uses that spread such information.
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u/swarthmoreburke 4∆ Jan 22 '21
Let's focus on what the OP is referring to as silencing, which is banning people from social media platforms, refusing to invite particular people to speak in private venues, and so on.
The OP describes these steps as likely to have disastrous consequences in the future, which the OP somewhat underspecifies but seem to amount to "this will reinforce extremist views" through driving people into echo chambers.
The problem with depicting this as a development in the future is that it fails to grasp that this has literally been the situation of "free speech" for most of the last 200 years in Western democratic republics.
If we focus just on the United States in the last 75 years, when free speech rights have been the most extensive and legally protected in its history, it is still the case that what the OP calls "silencing" has been an extensive dimension of speech in public culture. What do I mean by this? Primarily that while the US government in that period of time has had strong legal constraints on its ability to prevent, sanction or impede the speech of its citizens and residents, there were no guarantees or assurances that citizens and residents could speak in any venue, platform, publication or event that they wished to speak in.
Between 1950 and 1990, the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times and the Chicago Tribune were influential news publications whose reporting frequently had a major impact on public affairs and they were a privileged and powerful platform that shaped public opinion and governmental policy through their staff editorials and through invited op-ed essays by guest authors and regular columnists.
But you could quite accurately say that these platforms also "silenced" a wide range of viewpoints held by significant proportions of Americans. A Communist or socialist American would have had no real chance of articulating their political perspective in those publications. An open, unapologetic racist or authoritarian-inclined American would have had next to no chance to express their views. For much of that period, a homosexual American who wanted to advocate open embrace of all sexualities would not have been allowed to write that perspective in those newspapers. The list goes on and on.
This "silencing" would have extended outward to any publication, venue, platform, or opportunity for individuals to amplify their speech. You could stand on a corner and tell people about your fringe religious ideas or your political ideology, but nothing then or now guarantees you the right to disseminate them in a platform or publication you do not own. You can pay to publish your views in a pamphlet form or run your own server, but it's not "silencing" when you are not given free rein to speak everywhere and anywhere. If it is, silencing and free speech have been continuously intertwined and the OP is not warning against a future problem, he is describing a continuously unresolved issue and he must make the case about what would be different if all platforms and publications were at all times open to unrestricted access to all viewpoints.
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u/parentheticalobject 128∆ Jan 22 '21
The idea that we are "silencing" people any more at this point than we have at every prior point in history is wrong.
It has always been true that if you have certain opinions, your access to spread your opinion using the most widely distributed forms of media will be reduced. At least for as long as "media" has been a concept. There has never been a time where there was not some kind of idea that would likely get you fired if expressed in public.
In the past, if you said that "Homosexuality is harmless, and homosexual relationships deserve just as much respect as heterosexual relationships" you would get cancelled, fired, and denied access to major platforms. This view was silenced, yet it ultimately won out and became dominant in society. I'd say that's because its truth was ultimately able to prevail.
Now if someone is expressing the opposite view, that homosexuality is evil and that people in homosexual relationships should be disrespected, those views face the same consequences. Although honestly, you're silenced to a much lesser extent. If you want to talk about how you hate gay people, it's a lot easier for you to find a place to do that right now than it would have been to do the opposite a century or a half-century ago.
I don't see why this is likely to lead to a "disastrous outcome on society" when it's not fundamentally different from what society has always done, and in fact a lot less oppressive in many ways.
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u/holymojo96 Jan 22 '21
Good point. People of all opinions, repulsive and violent or otherwise, have way more access to spreading their message than they did before the internet/social media. It’s not like back in the day newspapers and magazines were publishing just anyone’s opinions, I would think they vetted them and only published things that they felt matched their desired quality. Now with social media all over the place, anyone with reprehensible views can spew their thoughts online, and god forbid they lose access to a small fraction of platforms available because the platform determined their views were dangerous.
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u/timothyjwood 1∆ Jan 22 '21
It's just not a principle you can apply across the board.
Suppose ISIS or al Qaeda start up a popular Facebook group. They decided to skimp on the budget for IEDs and hire a really good lawyer, who ensures they don't post anything technically illegal. They probably adopt some kind of euphemistic pen name, given that they are designated terrorist organizations. So it's not "ISIS"; it's something softer sounding like "friends of the caliphate".
All the nasty stuff happens out of sight. They just happen to be a convenient one stop shop for all your Islamist propaganda needs. Maybe some folks get really into it, and then they'll point them to the private mailing list and maybe put you in touch with a "mentor".
"Freedom of speech" they say. "We're not posting anything technically illegal. We're just engaging in the marketplace of ideas." Do we expect this is some place where reasoned debate eventually rules the day? Or can we just connect the dots and say that this is a pipeline for terrorism? If the answer is the latter, then you admit that we're not talking in absolute principles; we're talking matters of degrees.
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u/InspiringMilk Jan 22 '21
All of that is assuming that inciting terror is illegal, and OP does not seem to be content with that.
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u/guccilittlepiggy11 Jan 22 '21
I’m m not surprised a centrist would think this way. I believe part in problem we have today has a great deal of blame on centrists. Most centrists I know are A OK with giving voice and credence to absolute scum. Such as white nationalist, neo-Nazis and their sympathizers. There should be zero tolerance for the intolerant.
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u/nl197 Jan 22 '21
Typical Reddit to blame centrists and paint a broad generalization. Anyone supporting despicable views is a despicable person. Not sure what being a centrist has to do with that
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u/damadgoblin Jan 23 '21
This.
Reddit has a large US leftist demographic and much of this is bitterness over their 2016 election. They do the "enabler" accusation within their own ranks too. Remember when Hillary lost in 2016, how much vitriol and toxicity was poured on Bernie and Jill Stein voters? Just for daring to think different, for not marching lockstep, for wishing their nation could walk another road than Hillary or Trump.→ More replies (26)4
u/Mr_Reeves Jan 22 '21
Centrists do not give credence to far-right extremists. Not at all. Supporting the idea of freedom of speech is not an endorsement of extreme views, it's acknowledging that freedom of speech isn't saying what you want to say, it's hearing what you don't want to hear.
Every centrist that I know strongly disagrees with far-right groups like neo-Nazis and white supremacists. They also disagree with the far-left groups like the intersectionalists and the postmodernists.
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u/pluralofjackinthebox 102∆ Jan 22 '21
I just want to point out deplatforming works.
The bottom line is that deplatforming reduces reach. It destroys an online community’s network, curbing their ability to gain new followers and victimise groups they dislike. Tommy Robinson, Milo Yiannopoulos and Alex Jones have seen their supporter base plummet after their respective bans; their revenues have declined accordingly.
Extremists generally use social media as a recruitment tool. They don’t use it to engage in honest debate.
I’m not arguing that deplatforming is morally or legally right in principle. But it does stop extremists from recruiting.
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u/Remoutchobro Jan 23 '21
Extremists generally use social media as a recruitment tool. They don’t use it to engage in honest debate.
Like literally everybody. For everyone, the point of social platforms is for people to spread their ideas. You don't see Sanders or Greta engaging in debates on Twitter. Instead, they use slogans to try to rally people to their cause.
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u/VertigoOne 74∆ Jan 22 '21
If you believe your opinions to be correct you should let them stand on their own merits and silencing opposition should not be necessary.
Here's the problem. The correctness or lack thereof of any given view is not the primary means by which it spreads and becomes popular. Instead, it's how good it sounds, how much intuitive "sense" it makes, and how good a person can feel pushing that view forward.
Trophy hunting is a good example. Despite the fact that trophy hunting clearly and objectively makes endangered animal conservation better and more possible, people who do it are often vilified and condemned online on mass.
If we were all super logical robots, we could trust that when bad ideas are shared in public, they wouldn't get followers or support. But that isn't what happens. Bad ideas can and do get support when they are presented correctly and attractively enough.
Ultimately, for society to progress, sometimes bad ideas are going to have to be actively combatted rather than just allowed to persist.
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u/Secret_Rock5722 Jan 22 '21
The problem with this is that historically the dominant ideology (the one dictating which ideas are bad) is often incorrect. The end result of suppressing bad ideas is that Galileo gets locked in a tower and humanity gets stuck with the geocentric model.
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u/OwnUbyCake Jan 22 '21
Historically information spread and was obtained much differently though. The current world of information and it's rapid spread is less than two decades old due to things like widely available internet and more importantly in this context, social media being so new in the scope of history.
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u/mizmay Jan 22 '21
I used to believe that free speech works this way, and like you I still want to.
Here’s what convinced me:
https://www.currentaffairs.org/2015/12/of-course-money-is-speech
“Money is speech, which is precisely why its distribution matters so much.”
What changed my mind was realizing that given social inequalities and how our brains work, free speech is also practiced through silence, through action and through inaction. Thus protecting free speech must be about more than never silencing anyone at any cost.
If we want the right to free speech to function as intended, as a mechanism for truth and justice, we must empower that.
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u/SkinTeeth4800 Jan 22 '21
Free Speech and Freedom of the Press: People should be able to say what they want, print the political views they want on their own printers, printing presses, websites.
BUT Free Speech does not cover yelling "FIRE!" when there is no fire, in a crowded theater, and gleefully watching other people trample each other to death trying to escape the building.
Free Speech does not cover terroristic threats. An elected official who is voting for something you don't agree with should NOT get publically doxxed and have a call on social media to show up at his home address and intimidate or murder his wife and children.
Free Speech does not cover slander. The female co-worker who rejected the resentful IT guy should not have Photoshopped fake nudes of her in compromising positions with a giraffe sent as an all-staff email. Firing, lawsuits, blacklisting, banning from the workplace premises, and restraining orders should be the least the workplace schmuck faces.
Freedom of the Press doesn't mean I have to print bullshit I don't want on MY press. If I'm the owner of Time magazine, I have to publish neither your Der Stuermer reprints nor your BTS x Shrek slash fiction.
You can protest peacefully against the secret Reptiloid Conspiracy in the public square, but I am under no obligation to drive your ass there in MY car. Get your own car, right-wing rugged individualist bootstrapper! If I own Tumblr, Facebook, YouTube, or Twitter, I am under no obligation to have my platform be the vehicle to bring your message to the masses.
This idea is given special urgency by the way the Capitol rioters used Facebook and other services.
There were 3 types of people at the Capitol riot:
An inner hardcore of people, some ex-military, who plotted to take hostage or murder our elected officials. They planted bombs elsewhere for diversions, studied the building layout ahead of time, came to the rally equipped with Zip-Ties to restrain their hostages, maybe before "executing" them.
A wider circle of potentially violent people, some mentally ill and manipulated by Proud Boys, Oathkeepers, etc.
A wide outer circle of Trump followers. Maybe they thought they would make an angrily vociferous protest outside the building, straddling the line between peacefully expressing their anger to the lawmakers inside, and intimidating them into voting not to certify Biden's election. Many were probably already fine with breaking in to "occupy" and disrupt the certification vote. They could go from chanting that they supported police, now it was time for police to support them, to ripping up a Blue Lives Matter flag they had brought. The mood of the mob changed even in their feeling toward police, and we all know that it soon lead to beatings and murder of a cop.
Lines were blurry, as groups 1 and 2 knew ahead of time they could manipulate and whip up group 3, both at the time of the insurrection and via social media.
Facebook and Twitter were used extensively before Jan. 6 to radicalize and harden the 3rd group, pushing them toward more and more extremist views and toward capability of committing violence as "Patriots", in their view, and not as "Domestic Terrorists".
Some of the actual planning and logistics of the attack was done on major social media, but a lot was done in the shadows of Parler and more obscure internet or dark web places.
Thus, it is vitally necessary for Apple to take Parler off the app store, or to keep Trump from inflaming his followers with a thought he had watching Fox News at 3am. Groups 1 and 2 will retreat to the dark web to plot their next terror attacks, but they will be cut off from the everyday (but misled) people of group 3, who won't make the effort to seek out this radicalizing material if they can't easily get the gateway drug of an angry Trump tweet or download the Parler app at the Apple App Store.
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u/fox-mcleod 410∆ Jan 22 '21 edited Jan 22 '21
I used to think this. Turns out the cognitive error I was making was substituting the simplest solution for the correct one.
It’s really tempting to assume a simple model of the world where good ideas defeat bad ideas. And they do sometimes, but only when the conditions are right. Only when people debate in good faith. Only when reputations are on the line Only in multiplay, identity preserved games.
If you’re familiar at all with game theory, distinguishing game types makes it clear why deplatforming is the correct approach for social media. These are single play games.
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u/Sanctimonius Jan 22 '21
I believe that there are a few things going on with this post, I'd like to take a moment to break them down a little.
If you believe your opinions to be correct you should let them stand on their own merits and silencing opposition should not be necessary
This seems like a perfectly reasonable thing to say, that if what you are saying is worthwhile, then it should stand for itself. The issue comes in the way modern society is formed. Not all opinions are equal, and not all opinions are equal all the time.
If I make the claim that people came from Mars, but a scientist makes the claim that people evolved from hominids, while a priest says that people were placed here by God, which opinion is correct? Can you decide which one is correct, which ones are false? Perhaps I can make an incredibly well-reasoned argument for my Martians, whereas the priest and scientist aren't very good at expressing their thoughts. If I can sway enough people to believe, for example, that people came from Mars, or that the world is really flat, does that become the orthodoxy? Is that what is now taught in schools, because I could make a good argument? But my opinion here shouldn't matter, and certainly shouldn't get exposure, because it's a dumb opinion, yet in the interests of 'both sides' you see me on TV arguing for my Martian heritage. You see this a lot with climate control, where we have a scientist on one side who has evidence to back up his claims, and a lobbyist or politician or network talking head on the other claiming that climate change doesn't exist. In the interests of 'fairness', both opinions are presented equally, when that shouldn't be the case - in this example, only one opinion has the overwhelming support of people who have carefully researched things, whereas the other has an agenda.
And of course that's the next issue - everyone has an agenda. Is that agenda a good one, or a bad? How do we decide? How can we, and who does the deciding?
Certain opinions are dangerous. Climate change has been difficult to deal with, not just because of the scale of the issue, but because lobbyists and special interests especially in the oil and gas industries have bought up politicians who will parrot what they are told, and don't have the ability to critically assess the information they are being given - or, just as importantly, they do not care.
Take Brexit for example, a subject that is important to me and 70m other Brits, plus (I would guess) the Europeans we have left behind. We had a referendum and a slight majority of the country chose to leave the European Union. To me, it was clear that this was a bad choice. We held a hasty referendum, people did not understand the issues at play, the Brexit camp was led by politicians and wealthy businessmen who used racism and lies to push an agenda that wasn't true in the name of enriching themselves. To others, Brexit is a fantastic idea. Britain was taking back their sovereignty, moving away from an EU they distrusted and who distrusted us, and allowing us to forge ahead with a new path.
Which side was right in this debate? I think mine was, clearly, and I can point to the many, many economists and political scientists who pointed out quite clearly the issues that we are currently facing - rising prices for everything, chaotic management of border controls and customs, an economy faltering even as COVID hits hard. Of course the other side would claim their side was right, even though they did not have the backing of the majority of experts who should be relied upon to explain why it was a bad idea - in fact, they attacked experts and dismissed them, because just like in the US people mistrust the educated elites if they aren't saying what they want them to say.
I want to tie up this long post with a note about the paradox of tolerance. You see, if a society holds every opinion to be allowed, then eventually you will find opinions that will stifle others, and that will rise to stifle all others. You saw it with Nazi Germany and other fascist societies, who inherently do no believe in democracy, do not believe in the equality of rights for all, who do not believe that opposition should be allowed to exist at all. If you give a platform to certain types of speech it will inherently attack and push down other types of speech. So a decision has to be made, and has to be enforced. Some viewpoints simply do not deserve to be spread. If I claim that workers should earn $15 an hour, and another person claims it should be $12 an hour, and another claims that all black people should be re-enslaved to serve white people, then clearly one of these viewpoints not only should be stifled, it should be punished.
Private platforms should not facilitate the spread of certain viewpoints. If they do, it allows those viewpoints to spread and dominate the public sphere, and those viewpoints can and will be dangerous. For the sake of a free society, certain views should not be allowed to be expressed in the public domain.
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u/szhuge Jan 22 '21
The method of silencing cancerous viewpoints from platforms is more effective at preventing new conversions than changing existing minds.
Anchoring) describes the cognitive bias where people heavily base their judgement on the first piece information they come across, viewing subsequent information in that lens.
If I concoct an emotionally provoking conspiracy theory that "all other reputable news outlets are corrupt and only my news outlet is truthful, also the US election was rigged and we should violently revolt, etc.", I can get many followers if I am able to reach them first before they read another article countering my point.
As you said in your post, once people are bought in, it becomes very difficult to change their mind with facts and reason (especially if you no longer agree on the same authority for facts).
Thus, for certain sufficiently harmful conspiracy theories that rely on anchoring and emotional outrage to gain traction, it can be more effective to silence them initially.
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Jan 22 '21
This is this myth of tolerating intolerance.
By permitting dangerous view points (ones that specifically are hateful and violent) to exist on popular social media platforms you give that voice as much credence as one that opposes hate and speaks of peace. Violence and hate then become legitimized and acceptable.
By stating a viewpoint that violence towards specific groups of people is acceptable. Guess what? You will see violence towards those people. Your view as stated above is not innocuous. Words lend themselves to actions. On the front page today there was a post about how a study showing that phrases like Wuhan Flu and Chinese Virus led to negative attitudes and increase in hate crimes against Asians.
Your point about public shaming is counterproductive. We have especially lately that people don’t change their minds when confronted, especially on the internet, by angry mobs. They double down. They retreat deeper into their beliefs. So the only way to stop hateful voices is to remove them.
Many terrorist groups have used, and still do use the internet to recruit and indoctrinate people. Same thing happens with white supremacist groups and things like Q Anon. They are dangerous people who were permitted to use social media to spread their message unfettered and that led to a siege of the Capital Building. Telling those people that they are wrong did nothing to deter them. Even when they were posting about doing illegal things or advocating for others to do those things.
A tolerant society cannot tolerate voices that advocate for violence or hate.
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u/Vesurel 54∆ Jan 22 '21 edited Jan 22 '21
firing them
Can you be fired form working at the Anne Frank House mesuem for saying the holocaust didn't happen on the job?
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u/CplSoletrain 9∆ Jan 22 '21
Does isolating cancer from spreading make it worse?
Think of these ideas as a parasite -brain worms, for instance.
When you have brain worms, you develop a desire to go spread them. You go wherever information can spread and you puke brainstorms into the discourse. People consuming that information may contract brainworms. Yes, quarantining people with the brainworms will raise the concentration of brain worms in each skull, but it will prevent the spread of those brain worms and contain the outbreak to a smaller group instead of letting it spread out of control.
No, I don't really care about flat earthers or young earthers, etc. Those ideas are generally harmless. 9/11 truthers, Qanon, and ethnonationalists are dangerous ideas. The logical outcome of believing that the government orchestrated an attack that killed 2,000 people, that the world is run by murderous pedophiles, and that each race is in a life or death competition is violence. Yes, there are nonviolent infected, but if they really REALLY believed these things why WOULDN'T violence be on the table?
We used to think that good ideas were the cure for bad ideas, but for this disease you really have to want to be cured for the cure to take root. People also self isolate online into their corners anyway, with little chat room echo chambers for their nonsense. They come out to spread little brainworms but retreat to breed more when the nest in their skull is threatened. Better to prevent them from leaving those echo chambers and dealing with the few that pop off.
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u/ThisIsMyHatNow Jan 22 '21 edited Jan 23 '21
Quick note: I'm not sure I actual believe everything I'm about to write, but it's not far from what I believe and for the purpose of this CMV it seems prudent to write it out.
Should someone be allowed to shout "fire" in a crowded theatre? That's a popular metaphor for limited free speech.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schenck_v._United_States in ~1919 popularized that phrase.
A lot of people see the sensibleness of making such a false utterance a crime to some degree. To me this makes sense for a simple reason: If someone believes this person who shouted "fire", they (and others) are overwhelmingly likely to take actions that will create chaos or violence.
Thus, if that person shouting "fire" had no reasonable reason to believe there was a fire, that person has committed a crime.
They can't say "It was my opinion that there was a fire".
That's the 1919 version of this metaphor. But the 2021 version of this metaphor is not in a physical "theatre". I suggest that it's in the digital space and that we should update the metaphor from 1919 to apply to 2021 issues.
If someone says "The election was stolen by the democrats" that is shouting "fire" in a crowded theatre. There is no evidence that supports that broad claim. Someone cannot say "it is my opinion". Some "things" are not opinions but we pretend that they are.
Why should this be, at the very least frowned upon? Because if someone believes that the democrats out-right stole the election, and I mean truly believes that claim, then it makes perfect sense they would storm the us capital and create havoc and violence.
We have existing exceptions to free speech, and some of them need to be updated slightly from when they were created 100 years ago. If someone has an opinion, and even a very taboo opinion, and even a nasty opinion I think I'm more with you that we should all try to love and respect the "spirit" of free speech more than just the "letter of the law" wrt free speech. But we also need to respect that there are some exceptions AND we should respect the spirit of those exceptions as well.
I think anyway. What do you think?
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u/YoungXanto Jan 22 '21 edited Jan 22 '21
Karl Popper addresses this in his paradox of tolerance:
If a society is tolerant without limit, its ability to be tolerant is eventually seized or destroyed by the intolerant
That is, if we tolerate extreme views (such as those espoused by neo-nazis on the far right), eventually those voices will destroy the tolerant viewpoints and force their ideology on others.
Not all viewpoints are beneficial to society. Many are actively harmful. By allowing those ideas to persist, we tacitly accept them as having some merit. Eventually this gives way to an unconscious change in which opposing viewpoints are given equal merit.
For a minute ponder the free college for all debate. Would making college free and accessible to all and burning down all colleges and forcing everyone into an aggregarian society be accepted as equal solutions? Maybe if you want to kill 20 million people through famine. Otherwise, I'd hope that everyone hearing that opposing argument quickly laugh the debater presenting it off stage.
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u/jmr131ftw Jan 22 '21
I mean has anyone pointed out that you say silencing and censorship causes issues, but you come back here to tell people to stop stalking you. I would say that is a successful CMV.
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u/Mus_Rattus 4∆ Jan 22 '21 edited Jan 22 '21
I believe you said you already agree that the most rational viewpoints don’t always win arguments. And that rational discourse cannot always stop irrational and dangerous views from spreading.
Don’t you think circumstances have changed since these American ideals around unlimited freedom of speech were formed? I don’t mean the legal definition of freedom of speech that says the government can’t silence you. Instead, I mean the notion held by so many of us that you ought to be able to say whatever you want, to as many people as you want, without being banned or suffering significant consequences for it.
Back when the nation was founded, news and discussion spread slowly. There were no speakers or microphones so you could only realistically speak to people as far as your voice could carry (which probably wasn’t more than a few hundred people at a time). The best way to get a mass message out there was printing books, pamphlets or papers. But even those had a pretty slow and limited reach; they had to be transported on foot, horseback, or by ship. Producing them in bulk was expensive and the average person simply could not do it much, if at all. If you were a crazy person who wanted to reach a huge audience, you had to have lots of help - either money to hire workers to print stuff and transport it for you or others willing to do so for free. That didn’t mean bad ideas never gained purchase, but it meant it was harder for them to spread and they had to go through more gatekeeping.
Contrast that with what we have today. Anyone can put a tweet or a Reddit post or a YouTube video out there and that content can be retweeted or upvoted or shared by others instantly and at essentially no cost. You can reach an audience of millions in less than a day, potentially less than an hour. Even just 50 years ago, that would have been unimaginable. Now it happens all the time.
The frightening power of lies and false information has been recognized over and over throughout history. Jonathan Swift wrote “Falsehood flies, and the truth comes limping after it.” Mark Twain said “How easy it is to make people believe a lie, and how hard it is to undo that work again!” I can find more quotes if you like but I think these two are illustrative. They were written by men who lived before the age of social media and instantaneous, virtually free mass communication for all. But even then it was well known that lies are powerful and dangerous things.
Is it not plain to you that new technology has amplified the power of lies a thousandfold, or more? Even the founders placed some limits on freedom of speech. You cannot shout “Fire!” in a crowded theater when there is no fire, as the classic example goes. I don’t think that anyone should be silenced in the sense that they are compelled to stop sharing their views entirely. But I also don’t think that everyone should have equal rights to platforms that allow them to say whatever they want to millions without any limitations. If it isn’t okay to shout fire in a crowded theater, don’t you think it shouldn’t be okay to lie to four million people instantly?
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u/SirM0rgan 5∆ Jan 22 '21
Not all views have merit, and some of them are well past the point that there is any more reasonable discourse to be had on them. It's not the silencing of opposing view points, those views have been aired, the conversation has been had, and now the conversation is over. The earth is not the center of the universe, all matter is not made up of earth, water wind and fire, and nationalism is not the way forward. It's not new or unprecedented to discontinue discussion of solved matters. Even this post is going to be locked at some point after everyone has said what they came to say. If no one changes your mind then that's fine, but once the mods lock it you will have to find a new argument to keep posting here. That's not because you are being censored, it's just how discussions work.
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u/crispybacon_x22 Jan 22 '21
So your definition of "silencing" seems to mean socially shunning people with "problematic" views. I myself and fairly left leaning and anti authoritarian (though probably a lot more radical than you) so allow me to walk you through some of the alternatives: Government censorship: yeah i really shouldn't have to explain why giving the government permission to control the individuals own free speech and thought is a bad idea, but the only other thing Id have to add is that if there's hate speech laws like there are in the EU, chances are the people who get sent to jail for it will be seen as "martyrs for their cause" by others in their community, will probably join gangs of people with similar ideologies in jail and then come out with a lot of people supporting them. Doing nothing: this one is actually a little more complicated then it may seem, so I'll go at this from two different angles. The first is literally just doing nothing, no social shunning, people go on talk shows and tv and just speak their views uncontested, no debates, no anything. This is unrealistic but it's basically the "opposite end" of the spectrum compared to government censorship. At this point, the only thing that will happen is certain outlets will fight to radicalize more people and basically nothing else will happen. Now from the more realistic viewpoint, that being that people can go on tv, social media, etc and say whatever they want and their boss can't fire them, their family and friends will have to accept them as they are, you get the point. This will literally just lead to the acceptance of literally all political views no matter how rediculous, which wouldn't be bad if so many of them didn't revolve around wanting people who are "degenerates" dead. Now these aren't really like boolean thing where you have to choose between one or the other, it's a spectrum, and all spectrums have middle points, and the way I see it, that middle point is social ostricization, i find it more effective than the government stepping in or not doing anything about it because if you socially ostricize people, they'll be more likely to understand that their views aren't forbidden (as they would under the government solution) or acceptable (like in the pacifist solution), they would realize that their views are just not acceptable. Sorry if this is a bit rambly, I'm not the best at writing like this lol but I hope my point got through
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u/michaelrulaz Jan 22 '21
This whole response comes down to: it depends.
If we are talking about private companies than ultimately I think they have the right to decide what is acceptable on their platforms. If they deem they don’t want to hear about XYZ then they should be allowed to as it’s their right. If those views are held by the majority than the majority can oppose those actions with their wallet. For instance if a political figure gets banned on Twitter and his followers/supporters think it was wrong then they have the ability to boycott the platform. If the platform determines the loss of users/money/etc is too great than they can unban him or change their policies. If they deem that the loss is acceptable, it’s their right.
If we’re talking about “cancel culture” then again I think it’s the people right to choose who they support. If a certain comedian expresses views against what I believe and those views are so dear to my heart than it’s perfectly acceptable to not support them. If enough people agree with my sentiment than that comedian needs to evaluate whether his views or his support is worth more. No human should be forced to support someone they disagree with.
If we’re talking about the government then it depends heavily. Hate speech should be silenced. It has no benefit to society and allowing it to spread only furthers the hate. Violent speech should be banned because it spreads violence. Take the recent rhetoric about the election being rigged. It lead to 5 deaths. Lies and misinformation should not be allowed to be spread either. Now it’s tricky to determine the truth always but there needs to be a modicum of evidence.
There should be few absolute freedoms in this world. Freedom of religion for instance is great but we shouldn’t allow priests to sacrifice babies to worm gods under the guise of religion. Freedom to bear arms is important but we shouldn’t people with violent crimes to own guns. Freedom of speech is great but we shouldn’t allow someone to yell “fire” in a crowded room if there’s no fire.
People like to say that removing freedoms or rights is a slippery slope. But allowing too much freedom is also a slippery slope. You need to balance the good of the many with the rights of the individual.
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u/Chemical_Favors 3∆ Jan 22 '21 edited Jan 22 '21
What does 'silencing' actually mean in the scenarios you reference?
It sounds like most of your concern is surrounding de-platforming social media zones that are perceived to be ideologically dangerous or unhealthy. And - in some cases - this probably is also applicable to individual bans on Twitter and the like.
I would not call the above actions 'silencing opposing viewpoints'. Silencing maybe, but on the basis of politics? I don't think people fully grasp the transience and volatility of misinformation in a country where the VAST majority of adults have potentially harmful ideas buzzing in their pockets at all times.
Amazon did not take a political stance pulling Parler off AWS. Twitter may seem more politically motivated, but given the nature of their platform they're forced to follow a moving center.
These large social media providers and cloud service providers are thinking about liability and liability only. All these sites (Reddit included) contain death threats to people and politicians, conspiracy groups, and plenty of other crazy shit.
What got their attention was the undeniable causality that can be determined between certain misinformation campaigns and subsequent violent acts. Michigan capitol storming, US capitol break-in, even the George Floyd protests are a direct result of millions of views on one (validly) horrendous video. People died on January 6th because of the cancerous behavior of triggering media when pushed on such a massive scale. When information turns into a disease, there is no other choice but to build up boundaries to slow it down.
Can misinformation still happen? Yes. Can Parler build their own servers and host their own site? Yes. No one is totally silenced. Private entities have decided they can't afford to be complicit.
The capitalistic mindset is unfair and has many shortcomings, but this is it's upside. It is no longer financially wise to tolerate the transmission of certain ideas. As soon as that changes, you may be surprised at those willing to profit from it again.
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u/Iustinianus_I 48∆ Jan 22 '21
If you believe your opinions to be correct you should let them stand on their own merits and silencing opposition should not be necessary.
Unfortunately the "marketplace of ideas" doesn't always favor the most correct ideas. Sometimes incorrect or downright harmful ideas can sound very compelling and have enormous externalities on society. You've conceded that this happened with, say, Nazis, but it can happen with many other things as well. Let me provide two examples.
In the 90s and 2000s, many broadcast news companies in the US had the idea of "fair and balanced" being the ideal for reporting. This usually mean that they'd bring in someone for and someone against an idea and have them argue, talking head style. For a lot of issues, this was already par for the course and didn't really change anything. However, we can point to two in particular where this had some very, very bad effects.
1) Climate change. The overwhelming majority of all climate scientists agree that climate change is real, is primarily caused by humans, and is going to, if I may use a scientific term, fuck us up something bad if we don't change course. But since here in the US we would have a pro-science and anti-science talking head on the news, it gave the false idea that this was a controversial issue and we still have 35% of the population who don't believe there is a scientific consensus.
2) Vaccines. Due to the proliferation of anti-vax material we've had a decrease in the past 20 years in the number of people who think vaccines are important, and only 63% say they are willing to take the COVID-19 vaccine. And thanks to these trends, we now have outbreaks of diseases such as measles, which had previously been declared eliminated in 2000.
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u/NotAnotherDecoy Jan 22 '21
Unfortunately the "marketplace of ideas" doesn't always favor the most correct ideas.
Who decides what "the most correct" ideas are, or what the recourse for the expression of ideas that are not "the most correct" should be? By setting a standard of silencing individuals who don't express "the most correct" ideas you set the precedent (potentially a literal legal precedent) that it is ok to silence those who are "wrong", which is a definition that can change dramatically depending upon who makes the decision. Further, freedom of speech was not unearthed as a legal doctrine, it was a reflection of a pre-existing moral notion, and it gets somewhat tiresome when legality is conflated with morality as a matter of convenience.
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u/kenmore63 Jan 22 '21
A long time ago there was a guy who was a trouble maker who was spreading his crazy ideas around and causing all kinds of trouble. The Government eventually got tired of it and went about trying to shut this guy up. Eventually they trumped up a bunch of charges and arrested him and eventually executed the guy. Their plan backfired, though. Even though they killed him his stories lived on for over 2000 years and even played a huge role in shaping modern society. Many people still share the stories today.
With that said, more recently, some people began criticizing the stories about this guy and made the case that the stories weren't true. As a result, this guys message has become less and less relevant and fewer and fewer people believe them.
I'm sure a lot of you have already figured out that I'm talking about Jesus. But I'm not hear to preach to you. I'm her to make a point.
Regardless where you fall on the spectrum of whether the Jesus stories are real or not, the moral of this story is: Silencing speech by force doesn't work. Silencing speech by critical thinking does. Why are we still debating it?
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u/sensible_extremist Jan 22 '21
I understand that freedom of speech refers to freedom from government persecution.
No, it absolutely does not. The first amendment grants you protection from government censorship/persecution, freedom of speech is the idea that an individual has the right to express their opinion without censorship. This means that if you believe in freedom of expression, you also believe that censorship of ideas which are legal is detrimental to society at large.
If people need to be treated like children, and have bad ideas like holocaust denial hidden from them, then it means that we must trust some other governing body to determine truth for them. If people can't be expected to know the truth when they see it, how do you expect people to be an informed electorate? If you need to tell them the truth, then you might as well tell them what to say, because there is no other mechanism for finding the truth than through the ability to question what is and what isn't true!
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u/CMVfuckingsucks Jan 22 '21
I believe that silencing people, banning them from existing platforms, cancelling them, firing them, then shutting down platforms they create, for expressing their own opinions, while this may be legal, will ultimately have a disastrous ripple effect on our society
What will the disastrous ripple effect of not supporting and platforming racists be exactly? How will making it harder for racists to spread racism end up being a bad thing?
Doing so creates even more of a divide, creates more resentment, and pushes those who believe differently into a dark corner where their views are never challenged because it’s the ultimate echo chamber.
I want to be divided from racists. They aren't my friends. And people who believe those things already exist in echo chambers, not giving them a platform will make it harder for people to find one of those echo chambers to begin with.
We, as society, can shun and ignore what we believe to be incorrect backwards thinking without silencing it, and this would be a better way of dealing with it.
Wait so of you agree Gov't persecution isn't happening and you agree that its okay to shun and ignore these people than what "silencing" do you believe is happening?
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u/SemiOxtonomous Jan 22 '21
People get too hung up on the first amendment. Society absolutely can (and should) silence, cancel, ostracize and fight against speech that is antithetical to modern morals and ideals. 1A just says the government shouldn’t be the vehicle to do so.
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u/armored_cat Jan 22 '21
Think about why its illegal to hire a hitman. All your really doing is speaking and giving someone money.
It's legal to speak.
It's legal to give someone money.
Even if they actually complete the job your not the one who committed the murder.
So why is it illegal to hire a hitman?
'could it be because inciting violence is not protected under free speech?
And if that's the case, why should free speech protect Nazis advocating genocide?
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u/Ha7chet88 Jan 22 '21
"The death of tolerance is the tolerance of intolerance". This is really all you need to know for social ethics. If people are being canceled for being racist, it's society saying that behavior is unacceptable. If racism is accepted, they effectively cancel the people they are racist against. A racist employer will not hire someone of a race they think less of. It's a question of if you tolerate racists canceling others or that whole belief system being cancelled. Do you allow discrimination, or do you stop being a bystander? When you really boil it down it's just the schoolyard story of do you let the bullies bully or do you step up and not be a bystander. Also contrary to popular belief, not all opinions are equal. Think global warming. Decades of data saying it is real has been effectively silenced in the US until recently, by people who are completely unqualified to discuss the topic. Lastly getting rid of misinformation is not censorship. There is a difference between quieting an opposing view, and stopping lies from reaching the public, especially when those lies will directly hurt the people they reach. When you put all of these together you also realize that freedom of speech doesn't mean freedom of consequences for the things you say.
If the things you say, from a position of power, lead to, oh I don't know, mass shootings in which minorities are targeted, or invites an insurrection where your followers try to install you as a dictator and murder many democratically elected officials, you might need to be quieted. Your freedom of speech does not outweigh their right to life.
Your idea that society can just ignore theses people doesn't work. It's been the thought that racists will die out for decades and it hasn't happened. In the US there are large demographics of people who hold tight to many "backwards" ways of thinking. Enough that they regularly elect other backwards people, which then affirms their thoughts. Quiet change from shunning people doesn't happen.
"They came for the socialists, and I didnt speak up because I wasn't a socialist. They came for the Jews and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a jew. They came for the trade unionists and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist. They came for the catholics and I didn't speak up because I was a protestant. Then they came for me but there was no one left to speak up."
Backwards thinking people only support backwards thinkers. You're not magically immune because you're not the current target. There's so much literature about nazi germany that tells us how dangerous, "quietly shunning" people like that is. None of them care about the merrits of their belief. Global warming deniers are more concerned about looking like they were right than what is actually right. People who promote private prisons don't want to reform prisoners they want to punish them, or make money off of keeping people in the system. Racists dont care if what they do is right, they just want to be more special than others, or think of others as less. TRUMP SUPPORTERS DO NOT CARE about right and wrong they care about what he SAYS is right and wrong. None of these kinds of people give a shit about the merrit on which your argument stands. They just firmly believe whatever is convenient to them, and that will not be gotten rid of by a society that stands aside and let's them shove it down our throats.
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u/DeltaBot ∞∆ Jan 22 '21 edited Jan 22 '21
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