And we say we are living in a democracy. Mark my word, there is not a SINGLE democracy in the world. It sounds good on paper but the technicalities are far from theory.
Democracy isn’t about getting your own way.
True democracy (Direct Democracy) can’t happen - you’d need to vote in every single decision. Without everyone’s decision, nothing could get done. It’s bad enough for a family of four to agree what movie to watch, let alone a whole country. It would be democratic if most people watched what they wanted, but the logistics for a country ain’t gonna work.
That’s why most Western countries in the world have Representative Democracy - we elect people to do that stuff on our behalf, and are aware of affecting factors. And by and large, it works. Sure, there are always failings and scandals and someone can point these out, because human beings like to cheat and have their own agendas, and of course, power corrupts. Sadly, there is no form of government that is safe from subversion.
If you don’t like a decision, vote for a representative that you think will do more of what you want. Or form an effective protest.
That’s the problem. You can elect any representative but you can’t ensure its a good one if the voters themselves are the choke-point, maybe you decide not to vote, vote based on trends, vote in panic or vote for some ideology rather than what should really matter to everyone in a long term.
I wonder how is US a true democracy. Its a two-party system, you can argue its better than China’s one-party system or Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (ahem!) but that’s all there is to it.
Suddenly they care. One dead CEao and a bunch of whiny scared Billionaires is enough to stop 10 years of hateful content. Interesting lesson right there. Censorship is only good if it protects the rich.
If in a work of fiction I have a villain call my hero the n-word to demonstrate that the villain is an unapologetic racist, and I am told that I can’t have that because the word is bad in and of itself and that racist behavior cannot be tolerated even in fiction…
That is censorship, even if your goals are noble they are also ignorant, as showing disgusting things in fiction is often done in order to condemn similar behavior in real life.
If you call a black person the n-word in real life, and he stomps your ass.
This isn’t censorship, this is comedy.
If one goes onto an online community and calls its members radical insults in an unfriendly clearly non-joking hostile manner. Then the guilty party should be removed from that community,
Who decides when the content is “hateful”? The perpetrators of genocide characterize themselves as marginalized and their victims as a force seeking to eradicate them. That is the problem with censorship. Those are the people who end up with the control of speech. You end up with an Orwellian inversion of concepts like hateful speech for the exact reason that they can be weaponized for profit and power.
You show me which fascist government is going to censor the fascists living under it. It’s a paradox. They will not. They will censor the resistance.
We’ve come to decide ‘hate content’ on ideological basis that the question of ‘who decides’ arises. If people could be more realistic than idealistic, that would’ve never been the issue. In this situation, what’s in your head becomes more important than what you really need because something didn’t go your way.
I mean it is censorship. But not all censorship is bad.
There will be no protection under the social contract for those who wish to violate it.
Advertising is hateful content. Ban the entire marketing industry now please.
Agreed. Let everyone be free to decide. I don’t want something shoved to my face 24x7, its inorganic and harmful.
The majority of advertising we see in the US should be banned for sure. It is just thinly veiled psychological fuckery designed to manipulate us. Not cool.
Well it depends on the definition of censor.
If you define censor as, “to suppress or delete as objectionable” (Webster) then it fits just fine.
Also, propaganda is not speech.
Propaganda is just some speech that has a political agenda. Most propaganda isn’t false.
Here on Lemmy, people who claim to advocate for freedom of speech and information, demanding for social networks to be shutdown and people to be censored based on unknown and ambiguous criteria, without even understanding the implications of it.
Details at six
in a year Lemmy will be a cesspool of extremist thoughts and opinions. left, right, doesn’t matter.
the average Lemmy user is become far more caustic towards any differing opinions and that directly increases the toxicity of the platform.
this is why mods are trying to be pedantic about the rules in communities, but unfortunately they’re only accelerating it.
for a truly free and moderated platform a mechanism must be put in place that allows the community itself to self-moderate. unfortunately every new platform wants to start out as Twitter or Meta or Reddit. All three of these platforms failed in their goals of becoming a better socialmedia platform while exceeding expectations for financial viability.
IMO communities should have a cap limit of members that can grow over time of positive growth. if there’s negative growth the community must resolve the issues together or be forced to shrink and lose members.
this doesn’t mean the community blocks access, it just means you can’t post content or comments.
Censorship or not, tolerance is a social contract, and those who want to undo this system must be stopped by any means possible. Content moderation is actually the compromise.
Tolerance is tolerance and it can break any time. You just keep tolerating until you can’t anymore, as simple as that. Its artificial.
We don’t have a social contract. It’s everyone for themselves.
That depends on who’s doing the moderation. If it’s a government entity, that’s censorship, and the only time I’m willing to accept it is if it’s somehow actively harmful (i.e. terrorist plots and whatnot). If it’s merely disgusting, that’s for private entities to work out, and private entities absolutely have the right to moderate content they host however they choose.
Why is a private entity significantly different from a government entity? If a coalition of private entities (say, facebook, twitter, youtube, … ) controls most of the commons, they have the power to dictate everything beyond the fringes. We can already see this kind of collusion in mass media to the extent that it’s labeled a propaganda model. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda_model
I just don’t think the private/gov dichotomy is enough to decide when censorship and moderation is valid.
the only time I’m willing to accept it is if it’s somehow actively harmful
Oh, like the dissemination of propaganda originating from the troll farms of hostile powers? Good idea.
Harmful meaning things like harassment (defined as continued and targeted use of speech intended to harass an individual) or credible threats of violence (i.e. a threat to kill a specific individual, attack an area, etc).
Harmful doesn’t mean “ideas I don’t like.”
I feel like it is still censorship, but a degree of censorship required for public safety is tolerable…
Unless he’s saying that social media sites policing content on their platform isn’t censorship, because it’s not. It’s only censorship if it’s a government doing it, you have the right to control what is said on a platform you own
It’s only censorship if it’s a government doing it
The amount of public space, both real and virtual, is decreasing dramatically. I think limits on private censorship should definitely exist.
Alright, so just for example let’s say I spin up a Lemmy instance on my computer and allow other people to make accounts on it. Why should the state be able to require me to store anything I don’t want on my PC?
Or do these limits only kick in for platforms above a certain size? And in that case, why would the same principle not apply?
If I make sandwiches and people decide to eat my sandwiches then why should the government require me to follow basic health and safety.
Service offered to the general public should expect to be regulated.
Or do these limits only kick in for platforms above a certain size?
That’s how it’s in the EU, the DSA only applies to large providers. It’s kinda like the fairness doctrine in broadcasting but in the digital domain, e.g. TikTok is currently in hot waters over the Romania elections because they did not take sufficient precautions to make sure that everything’s fair and square.
And in that case, why would the same principle not apply?
Because size obliges. If I want to smelt some cans in my backyard I can just do that provided I have a “fireplace” – which is just an area set up to be suitable to have a fire. If I want to build an industrial-scale aluminium smelter I have to get permits and everything. The public interest in the latter is much larger, that’s why I have to jump through hoops and follow regulations.
(I can’t burn garden waste though, gotta give it to the municipality to compost. A matter of waste of perfectly fine organic material and unnecessary emissions).
Excellent point
These are platforms. It isn’t censorship because they are private for-profit entities. They can host or deny any speech they want. And we can post on them or not and take our content elsewhere.
It’s all about control
Not in the way you’re implying, it isn’t.
Some might call it a… what’s that word? Responsibility?
Like that whole neighbor and community upstanding injustice and leveraging their privilege for the have nots thing that has defined modern human society up until Cambridge Analytica?
He just wants more censorship. They will ban “hateful” content, and then reclassify anything they don’t like as hateful. We’re already seeing a number of platforms and institutions labeling criticism of Israel as hate speech.
