[HN Gopher] Dismantle the Censorship-Industrial Complex: The Wes...
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Dismantle the Censorship-Industrial Complex: The Westminster
Declaration
Author : ed-209
Score : 77 points
Date : 2023-10-22 22:53 UTC (10 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.racket.news)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.racket.news)
| jfengel wrote:
| I would have a lot more respect for this if they at least tried
| to recognize that the genuine concerns about unlimited free
| speech. Almost every government recognizes threats as not being
| protected. Libel and slander are also generally not allowed. Some
| kinds of pornography are considered by large numbers as beyond
| the pale.
|
| Making universal declarations is easy but not very useful. Real
| work is done by grappling with the actual limitations. I'd have a
| lot more respect for a maximalist position that at least
| understood why some people legitimately reject that position, and
| not just because they're stinky meanie snowflake boo-boos.
|
| Without that I expect governments to say "thank you for your
| unrealistic statement, we'll now ignore it and implement whatever
| we feel like because you're not saying anything to engage with."
| toyg wrote:
| You still need some maximalism to signpost an Overton window
| wide enough for a fair compromise to emerge. Otherwise all
| you're doing is hopeless damage limitation, with the window
| sliding further and further towards the _opposite maximalist
| position_ until it 's the law of the land.
| crooked-v wrote:
| This nonsense attitude of "the good result is always in the
| middle of the two arguments" is one the worst failings of
| modern political attitudes.
| uoaei wrote:
| It is largely a product of Americo-centric modes of
| reasoning about politics, especially since an overwhelming
| part of Americans' engagement with political issues is
| predicated on how the Ds and Rs act and react to each
| other.
| inglor_cz wrote:
| "This nonsense attitude of "the good result is always in
| the middle of the two arguments" is one the worst failings
| of modern political attitudes."
|
| I don't read this in the previous argument. I read an
| appeal not to narrow the Overton window too much.
|
| Accidentally, what do you mean when you talk about a "good
| result"? Good from which perspective? Conforming to a
| certain ladder of values, or achievable without bloodshed
| or further deepening of already bad polarization?
|
| Precisely because the society cannot usually unify on what
| counts as "good", compromises are, at least, somewhat
| useful in placating the worst conflicts.
| toyg wrote:
| I didn't say "good", I said "fair"; and by that, I mean
| fair to the majority of people. Whether that's "good" or
| not, depends largely on one's view of the world.
| nonrandomstring wrote:
| _With or without_ that I expect governments to say "thank you
| for your unrealistic statement, we'll now ignore it and
| implement whatever we feel like.
|
| The standard of debate and progress of the UK Online Safety
| Bill offered ample evidence of an era in which complex,
| reasonable and nuanced debate, and appeal to the reasonability
| of governments, is over.
|
| Which is what this is all about really.
|
| Post classical democracy it's all about power, and who shouts
| the loudest. The voices in this impressive list of academics
| extolling the noble fight for Truth through free-speech seem
| like "the wind in dry grass".
|
| they, and yourself, are appealing to modes of argument and
| disputation the enemy no longer recognises.
|
| Already "censorship" seems too narrow a take of what's
| happening. It's about shaping the narrative, about shutting up
| _your_ voice, and making sure the "right" ones get heard. The
| digital technological landscape is the battleground for this
| new epistemology.
|
| Truth, if it has a future, will either have to find a way
| outside the digital realm, or learn to celebrate its
| illegitimacy within it.
| shadowgovt wrote:
| > Post classical democracy it's all about power, and who
| shouts the loudest.
|
| As opposed to previous eras of democracy?
| OfSanguineFire wrote:
| Previous eras of democracy often had some limitations on
| suffrage, and no round-the-clock media cycle that reached
| into every household. Under those circumstances, political
| debate was less sensitive to the loudness of the mob, and
| more sensitive to longform argument published and read
| among intellectuals. If you look at nascent American or
| European democracy, it is remarkable how much its tensions
| were negotiated by texts that seem emotionally balanced and
| complex indeed in the modern era of television, radio, and
| internet.
| cedilla wrote:
| Yeah, no. There was a lot of political violence in proto-
| democracies, especially around the topic of suffrage. If
| we just look at "limitation" of women's right to vote -
| Suffragettes would be called domestic terrorists today.
|
| It's not much more than nostalgia to think that in the
| good old times pens were mightier than sword. The nascent
| American democracy fought two wars to settle its tensions
| despite all the wise prose the elite wrote.
| Tainnor wrote:
| And in Weimar Germany, there were violent street clashes
| between Nazis, Communists and the Police, as well as
| assassinations, attempted coups, etc.
| nonrandomstring wrote:
| > in Weimar Germany, there were violent street clashes
| between Nazis, Communists and the Police, as well as
| assassinations, attempted coups, etc.
|
| Thanks for amplifying my point for me.
|
| When democracy broke down in those days you needed to
| pick up sticks, rocks and Molotov cocktails to silence
| those that disagree with you..
|
| Today you just need to delete their DNS records.
| """ The most violent element in society is ignorance
| -- Emma Goldman """
|
| It's not that there was a "golden age" of democracy, just
| that ways of disrupting the best efforts of reasonable
| people have changed.
|
| Censorship laws directed against "hate speech" and
| "disinformation" are just new manifestations of
| ignorance. They are a retreat from rationality. Truth
| must be fought for with more words, not less, tooth and
| nail every day, and it's very costly.
| marcosdumay wrote:
| Well, as opposed to any time when it wasn't dying...
| because this is exactly how it dies.
|
| Democracy actually works with small causes and stable
| rules. Not at all with radicalism.
| shadowgovt wrote:
| How do we define radicalism in this context?
| marcosdumay wrote:
| Radicalism doesn't do this:
|
| > complex, reasonable and nuanced debate, and appeal to
| the reasonability
| shadowgovt wrote:
| In that case, American politics has been dominated by
| radicalism at least since the time we let one of our own
| vessels blowing up due to lax maintenance drag us into
| the Spanish-American War, if not longer. Politics is
| _usually_ more about feelings than facts. The rational
| voter is a myth. We don 't imagine Americans were mulling
| the issue of slavery by reading the great thinkers of the
| day in an era when 1 in 10 white men couldn't read, do
| we?
| drewcoo wrote:
| I would expect "classical democracy" to be ancient Greece.
|
| It's a strange redefining of terms. In a discussion about
| terminological abuse and language control, no less!
| mcpackieh wrote:
| You can prosecute people for criminal threats without creating
| technical apparatuses for shaping and controlling narratives.
| Prosecuting people for speech that's illegal isn't incompatible
| with forums that allow people to speak their minds freely and
| unfiltered.
|
| For instance, the US Postal System does not run my mail through
| content classifiers and filters to determine whether my mail
| should be suppressed or passed through. If I mail a death
| threat, the postal system will dutifully deliver it. Despite
| this, the government may still prosecute me for it. The
| government's ability to prosecute me for mailing illegal things
| is not contingent on the postal system having some nanny AI
| that reads my mail and shadow-bans me when it disapproves.
| Having laws that restrict speech does not necessitate creating
| automatic censorship systems. And _"..but with computers "_
| doesn't change this.
| pdonis wrote:
| _> Almost every government recognizes threats as not being
| protected. Libel and slander are also generally not allowed._
|
| And the common factor in all of these is that the problem with
| them is not speech. It's something going beyond speech. A
| threat is a threat--it's not protected because it's a threat of
| harm, not because it expresses something someone disagrees with
| or thinks is "misinformation". Libel and slander aren't
| protected because of the effects of false information on
| someone's reputation and ability to make a living, not because
| they don't meet someone's fact-checking standards.
|
| In other words, these are not problems with "unlimited free
| speech". They are problems with particular acts that, in
| _addition_ to being "speech", are also something else, and
| it's the "something else" that is the problem.
|
| What this declaration is against, OTOH, is limiting speech that
| is just speech--it doesn't fall into any of the categories
| described above (or other exceptions like "yelling fire in a
| crowded theater" that have the same issues)--but happens to
| express opinions or views that some people disagree with or
| find offensive. That kind of speech _should_ be unlimited.
| jmye wrote:
| Isn't this just shifting the issue? I like your reasoning
| w/r/t threats of violence. But let's say we're talking about,
| I dunno, polio vaccinations. John posts that the vaccine is
| dangerous and will turn your children into frogs. Jane thinks
| that posts that decrease the chances all children will
| receive a vaccination that shows provable efficacy in
| preventing polio are, in essence, threatening society (say,
| by putting people unable to receive the vaccine at hugely
| greater risk).
|
| You might argue that John's speech isn't a direct issue and
| is a matter of political opinion and should be unlimited.
| Jane might argue that the speech is directly dangerous.
|
| Your framing doesn't solve this issue - it just adjusts the
| point at which we adjudicate it, doesn't it?
| inglor_cz wrote:
| One of the practical problems you run into is that not even
| China or Iran can efficiently suppress unwanted speech.
| Taboo topics still get discussed, only somewhere out of
| sight.
|
| Anti-vax ideology needs to be fought with better arguments,
| not with sheer suppression, which will only drive some
| distrustful people towards the "hey, why are THEY trying to
| ban this information" position.
|
| At the end of the day, the problem is one of trust, and you
| don't gain any trust by treating other people's opinions
| heavy-handedly.
| vivekd wrote:
| Did you get the idea they were maximalists, the article seemed
| to restrict itself to talking about political speech which I
| understand is supposed to have the highest levels of
| constitutional protections because it seems obviously important
| to democracy
|
| They are asking for gov to abide by UDHR which is limited to
| politically motivated censorship
| acheong08 wrote:
| I trust Matt Taibbi a lot less after he appeared on the Gutfeld
| show (Fox News)
| WD40forRust wrote:
| ... and I trust him more now knowing this!
| mcpackieh wrote:
| Governments asking or suggesting that media companies suppress a
| story, with the companies choosing to comply of their own free
| will, is nothing new. This is how most media censorship in the US
| and UK worked during WW2. Governments would explain to a
| newspaper or broadcast company that suppressing a story was in
| earnest best interest of the nation and the media company would
| usually comply voluntarily because they felt it was the right
| thing to do. There's a good argument to be made that this kind of
| thing _really is_ good and proper; the government asking
| newspapers to stay quiet about D-Day preparations, and newspapers
| voluntarily complying, probably saved _many_ lives.
|
| But I'm worried. I fear that governments flexing this kind of
| soft power over media companies now in recent years is a sign of
| the times. I am afraid that governments see major wars on the
| horizon and that's why they're dusting off their old bag of
| tricks and asking the new tech sort of media companies to get
| ready to respond to censorship requests when the time comes. So
| it's not the wartime suppression of information that worries me
| the most, but rather the upcoming war it hints at.
|
| Edit: If anybody can talk me down from this fear, I would
| sincerely appreciate it.
| em-bee wrote:
| it isn't secret plans for war that are the concern but civil
| unrest. the problem is that you can't legislate peaceful
| coexistence. you have to actively encourage it through open
| conversation between the different groups.
|
| we need more interreligious and interpolitical dialogue at
| every level of society. we need to actively encourage everyone
| to listen to the concerns of others. this doesn't happen by
| itself. it requires the creation of offline spaces and forums
| open to everyone where people can meet and interact and are
| invited and encouraged to do so without prejudice.
| SenAnder wrote:
| > Governments asking or suggesting that media companies
| suppress a story, with the companies choosing to comply of
| their own free will, is nothing new.
|
| What _is_ new is that "media companies" now includes social
| media. I.e. what used to be real-life gossip has moved online,
| and been subjected to censorship. I should caution that it's
| not only government interference to fear - we don't want our
| public sphere to be moderated by giant corporations either.
| shadowgovt wrote:
| > The US First Amendment is a strong example of how the right to
| freedom of speech, of the press, and of conscience can be firmly
| protected under the law.
|
| That amendment includes the right to freedom of association as
| well as the aforementioned freedom of the press, which are
| _precisely_ the freedoms platforms use to choose who is on them.
| The freedom to speak one 's mind and Reddit's freedom to not
| transit that speech are the same amendment.
| drewrv wrote:
| It actually chuckled when they mentioned "labeling
| misinformation" or "manipulating search results". Those are
| forms of speech! They are doing the thing they're complaining
| about.
|
| Either this is being done in bad faith by peddlers of BS, or
| it's just intellectually lazy. Judging from the list of
| signatories, probably some of both.
| SenAnder wrote:
| Don't confuse the letter and the spirit of the law. It is
| unlikely the writers of the US constitution intended for
| private corporations to become mediators, and subsequently
| censors, of so much speech. They would not just throw their
| hands up and say "it's not the government so it's okay"
| macintux wrote:
| > Free speech is our best defence against disinformation.
|
| Do we know that to be true, or do we _hope_ that to be true?
| kbelder wrote:
| The irony of writing that question...
| inglor_cz wrote:
| This is not mathematics, you can't expect a QED here.
|
| Free speech is certainly pretty good against government-backed
| disinformation. Governments have a lot of power to push their
| POV anyway; add the ability to prosecute dissent to the mix and
| the system loses necessary feedback.
| 8bitsrule wrote:
| There's a difference between 'etiquette' and being threatened
| with being banned from a site for not using 'sensitive topic'
| features ...particularly for factual statements.
|
| Are social media sites part of the CIC? To what extent should we
| choose to censor ourselves 'out of consideration' to others?
| Today seems like a timely time to have this discussion.
| vivekd wrote:
| I choose to censor myself all the time out of consideration. My
| issue is when the law mandates and controls political speech
|
| If you are American you are safe because political speech has a
| high level of protection in the US.
|
| If like me you are non American - even if you are from a G8
| nation, you are watching your right to criticize the government
| slowly errode. But even if you are American, can you really go
| to court over a social media post.
|
| There should be something that at least restricts government
| action to the limits set out in the constitution
| vivekd wrote:
| The article complains about misinformation,' 'disinformation,'
| and other ill-defined terms being used to censor speech.
|
| The opposition to this and the indifference of the population
| generally suggests the age of free speech is over.
|
| These conversations get mired in debate over free speech
| maximalism or what is disinformation. I think that's besides the
| point.
|
| Perhaps a better question would be when is it okay to suppress
| speech. On what basis do we measure and catalog harmful speech or
| disinformation.
|
| I can see some, like speech calling for violence against certain
| groups. But that's already illegal. What about when government
| goes outside established frameworks to also protect 'truth' from
| disinformation or catalogs some opinions as harmful.
|
| I'm religious, I believe in ultimate truths, so I have ideas of
| misinformation and disinformation.
|
| But our governments today are secular. They don't believe in
| ultimate truths - so on what basis can they claim something is
| disinfo or misinformation and suppress it?
|
| When we say harmful info or discourse - harmful to who. I haven't
| been hurt, I don't know anyone who has. I do however see
| governments and corporations being harmed by speech online.
|
| Isn't the real issue that there is a new medium the internet that
| lets ordinary people speak freely and this is very uncomfortable
| for the political and business elites and they wish to suppress
| that.
|
| Isn't the question not really about free speech but more about
| how much control can States exercise over channels of public
| communications before they can reasonably be called tyrannical?
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