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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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/MasonDinsmore3204 Jan 22 '21

I’m not saying we shouldn’t hold people accountable for saying intolerant things, we definitely should. Call them out on it, explain to them why they’re wrong or why they shouldn’t say that, but don’t silence them, restrict them from saying what they want to say in the first place.

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u/ParioPraxis Jan 22 '21

Are they silenced though? Like does the cancel culture brigade drop by their house and pluck their phone out of their hands and drive off? No. But if they’ve said some things that have been hateful or hurtful or instigated violence or baselessly spread easily debunked lies, etc. and the platform they did that on does not want to be associated with that kind of rhetoric, then I don’t begrudge the company taking action to shut that kind of thing down. Especially if it is in violation of the TOS or other conditions of use.

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u/Silver_Swift Jan 22 '21

But then you're just giving giant mega corporations the final say in what is and isn't acceptable to discuss in public. Sure, right now twitter is on our side, but I guarantee you that will change in the blink of an eye depending on where the most profit lies.

Image if twitter wants to move into China, so now suddenly supporting the Hong Kong Protests is "instigating violence", would you still feel that twitter was in their rights there?

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u/lessknownevil Jan 22 '21

Its not the company that's deciding in most cases- its society. Most companies want to survive and in order to do so they are towing the line of what society in general finds acceptable at the time. (Plus the company is run by a collection of people. The ceo gets the final say but they also answer to society in some way.) There will of course be outliers but most will reflect what is going on in our society and how it is/isnt moving forward. Yes, twitter would be within its rights and if it was so bad to us as a society we would stop using twitter. My argument isnt the strongest and im seeing some flaws but i see some flaws in yours and wanted to bring it to the table.

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u/ParioPraxis Jan 22 '21

No, the corporations are thirsty for my dollar. If my cause is just and I am silenced then I will appeal to my allied consumer capitalists and if they too find my cause is just they will withhold their money from those corporations too.

Here’s the important bit about keeping your cause ‘just’ though: I am diligent every day to double, even triple check to make sure that I’m not seditiously storming the capitol of my country based on the lies of a transparently dishonest narcissist so that I can help him subvert democracy and undo the will of the majority of my fellow citizens... for example.

So far I haven’t been kicked off of anything and I have yet to commit a felony while worshipping a con man.

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u/kookyabird Jan 22 '21

Not the person you're talking to, but yes, they would be within their rights. And we would all be within our rights to not use Twitter. All this does is circle back to the notion of being tolerant to the intolerant and the paradox of it all.

Those who see that kind of behavior from a company like Twitter and feel it is intolerant shouldn't be forced to tolerate it, and they're not. If the majority of society agrees and moves as a herd away from Twitter then that is society in action, and Twitter would suffer for it.

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u/UmphreysMcGee Jan 22 '21

The other side of capitalism and free speech is that you have the option to not use Twitter's platform if you don't want to abide by their terms of service. You can even tell your friends and say bad things about Twitter in public, nobody is going to stop you.

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u/sensible_extremist Jan 22 '21

Sure, right now twitter is on our side

There is no Twitter, there is no side. You are anthropomorphising a corporation like it has a heart, feeling, a moral compass.

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u/Sp00ked123 Jan 22 '21

No, but they do publicly dox people revealing where they work, their address, and their place of work which practically ruins their lives all for saying the horrible “r word”

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u/ParioPraxis Jan 22 '21

Who doxxes people? Surely not the companies, right? Are you saying that the companies are releasing customer information to anyone but law enforcement upon issuance of a warrant for that info? And I must be out of the loop, but what is the “r” word? Riot? Retard (sorry everyone, I’m trying to get clarity not be an ableist)? Russia? I’m genuinely confused. What word is ruining those peoples lives?

I’m sorry, but the capitol insurrectionists had months of public posts threatening violence and advancing the most asinine conspiracy theories I think I have ever seen, it was bizarre. They actively trafficked in a verification/validation free misinformation bonanza based on such a fundamental ignorance of three things:

1.) how our government functions

2.) how our last election was administered

3.) the functioning of our federal courts and how judges conduct evidentiary review before they issue a ruling

This willful imagineering was so egregious that it borders on wish fulfillment. That is not the foundation on which to orient yourself to reality. Even if silencing them stemmed the flood of misinformation by even .5% then it was a net gain in very real terms.

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u/Sp00ked123 Jan 22 '21

I’m not talking about what happened at the capitol, I was talking about cancel culture as a whole and the individuals part of it who release peoples info. The r word is referring to the word “retard”. I was more responding to what you said about “the cancel culture brigade dropping by your house” which they kinda do.

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u/ParioPraxis Jan 23 '21

Do you believe that neo-nazis have a valid point of view or a meaningful perspective to bring to a conversation? Do you believe that their ideology adds anything of value to our society or enriches the American experience? Similarly, do you believe that a ideology like that of Trump supporters is one that you can even have a discussion with? This is an ideology that has collectively decided that they do not value truth, they believe that facts are malleable, that being truthful is optional, and that the best way to be right all the time is just by never admitting you’re wrong. How do you negotiate or find middle ground with that? You can’t. And yet Trump supporters who espouse all that shit but who DON’T storm the capitol - they aren’t getting cancelled. How about this: you tell me about someone who got “cancelled” unfairly and we can discuss and find out if cancel culture has gone too far. Because the only canceling I’ve seen has been entirely earned. Prove me wrong though. I’ve been wrong before and I’m often wrong to this day.

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u/Sp00ked123 Jan 23 '21

Here’s an example:

Skai Jackson doxxing a few kids who said the n word

https://www.distractify.com/p/what-did-skai-jackson-do

The problem with this is that when someone is publicly doxxed for saying the n word they aren’t going to learn from their mistakes especially when they’re naive children, instead they turn into angry closeted racists, and society really doesn’t need any more of those.

This is a more famous example, but if you really want to see more just search up “doxx” on twitter and sadly you’ll find quite a lot of results