
Freedom of Speech Is Now Largely an Illusion - gukov
http://blog.dilbert.com/post/157201503761/freedom-of-speech-is-now-largely-an-illusion
======
riffic
Walled garden platforms are a joke. If you need to get your messaging out
reliably you would host your own infrastructure (Gnu social/mastodon, et
cetera).

~~~
obstinate
If you can solve the problem of getting an audience onto GNU Social . . .

~~~
flukus
Pointing out the problems of closed platforms and some alternatives is a good
start. The likes of Scott Adams, Stephen Fry and Richard Dawkins would be well
placed to help attain critical mass.

------
vacri
> _Best of all, it makes people like me look like conspiracy nuts. ... I won’t
> ask you to believe me about Twitter’s backdoor assault on the First
> Amendment._

You are a conspiracy nut, Mr Adams. Twitter is a private company. Repeat:
Twitter is a private company. It's not even _nominally_ working in your name
(like a democratic government is). The First Amendment says nothing about
private entities. Just because every TV news show uses it as a lazy source of
react quotes does not make it a neutral public service.

Again, twitter is not a public service. Twitter owes you nothing; you haven't
paid it fees/taxes. It's also a _terrible_ place to discuss nuanced concepts
(which is most concepts). Twitter is _also_ not the only place you can express
yourself.

The more I read of Scott Adams' recent murmurings, the more respect I lose for
him.

~~~
maverick_iceman
Then why so much hullabaloo about fake news in Facebook? They are a private
company and surely they can show anything to their users?

Also I don't think you'd be as nonchalant if Elizabeth Warren or Bernie
Sanders were being banned by Twitter.

~~~
vacri
Firstly, I would be as nonchalant if Warren or Sanders were being _filtered_
(Adams isn't _banned_ ) by Twitter... because... as I say, Twitter is not a
public service. If you're going to be angry about Twitter filtering Adams, you
should be angry at HN for flagging this article. You should be using this
opportunity to educate people about Twitter not being a public service, and
how news services that use it for react quotes are doing everyone a disservice
(have you noticed now how react quotes these days come from strangers on
Twitter, not people near the actual event in question?)

As for Facebook - Facebook already filtered your feed, independent of the
'fake news' thing.

~~~
grzm
Small nit: I'm blessedly largely ignorant of Twitter and all of this
hullabaloo, though one difference I suspect in moderation is that any flagging
of this submission was the result of user action as opposed to any action
taken by a mod.

~~~
vacri
I don't think that there's all that much difference between a mod doing it and
the relatively small number of userbase flags doing it.

Hell, if userbase flagging was available in Twitter like on HN, no-one with a
household name would ever be able to use it, regardless of whether or not they
were even political...

~~~
grzm
I think in the case of your analogy it does. In one, the argument seems to be
that a central authority is censoring users. In the other, it's a community
enforcing its standards.

One can argue that there are potential problems in either case, but I think
the nature of the problems are slightly, but importantly different.

------
d--b
"we cant say anything anymore" blah blah blah.

Try and post a anti trump comment on breitbart.com

~~~
gydfi
Breitbart makes no claim to be a general platform for discussion. It is openly
a place with a particular bent.

Nobody is complaining about conservatives being banned from Democratic
Underground, they're complaining about conservatives being banned from twitter
and facebook.

~~~
ouid
Correlation is not causality. The people getting banned from twitter are
Republicans, but that is not necessarily why they are being banned. I'm sure
you can find lots of alternative correlates with the kinds of profiles which
are banned from twitter.

Whereas on Breitbart you are explicitly banned for dissent, on twitter, there
is only correlation.

~~~
vixen99
I'm curious. Presumably 'you' implies that dissenting comments are banned? Is
there evidence to suggest this is an editorial policy? If it is, senior editor
Milo Yiannopoulos has some difficult questions to answer.

On the other hand, any publication with an angle will favor comments
supporting that view simply because this is good for circulation and thereby
survival. As an exception to this, I might mention WUWT, the sceptical climate
site. You can find many (or at least a reasonable showing of) comments
dissenting strongly from a pro-sceptic article.

------
losteverything
As a corporate old guy I'll never forget Adams Lucent logo ,er coffee stain.
[0]

There were many favorites.

So can someone give me the 4 lines of what a comic strip millionaire did after
electrons took over paper?

Is Scott Adams still relevant. I've not heard his name for a decade.

[0]
[http://dilbert.com/search_results?terms=Brown+Ring+Of+Qualit...](http://dilbert.com/search_results?terms=Brown+Ring+Of+Quality)

------
trappist
He said, unafraid.

~~~
gydfi
He is unafraid. He's rich and his livelihood is not threatened. He's got an
audience already and being banned from twitter wouldn't affect his livelihood
much. And he doesn't live in Berkeley so he's unlikely to get his head smashed
in, but I wouldn't be surprised if he's had to increase his security measures
anyway.

------
hackuser
Scott Adams has some pretty crazy, extremist things to say. Recently someone
else quoted a couple of them and was flagged and criticized by a moderator for
provoking a flame war (the only inflammatory comments in the post were
Adams'). I think the credibility of the speaker is very important to any
topic, but I'm not sure how to address it here.

~~~
candiodari
Extremist is ... not useful. Yes he supports (not 100% even) Trump, but
extremist ? Be serious.

I think the point of the article is that twitter is randomized shadowbanning
(visible to 1% or so of people who explicitly look at his account actually see
his posts) based on political viewpoints.

~~~
hackuser
He is extremist. Again, it's clear from the moderators that quoting his
extremist statements is undesireable, but it limits our conversation.

You can find the quotes in this discussion if you know how to look:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13604551](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13604551)

~~~
grzm
Quotes can be used for different purposes. I suspect that you can use a quote
in a civil, constructive way as an example, though it might just be better to
find a reference to point to.

In the case you're referring to here, the commenter was intentionally bringing
up an inflammatory quote to discredit the parent comment, taking the thread
completely off track from what had been a relatively civil discussion, which
is what the mod pointed out (as did other commenters in the thread).

------
draw_down
"Now"

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milcron
Hmm, I've seen this phenomenon before. I wonder if it has to do with
popularity and tweet load?

------
obstinate
For some definition of freedom of speech, this is and has always been true.
You've never had the right to be heard, only the right to speak.

~~~
maverick_iceman
Would you have said the same thing to Martin Luther King in the 60s? Or to the
abolitionists during the 19th century?

~~~
obstinate
Yes, of course! Even MLK in all his excellence did not have the right to have
his speeches printed verbatim in every newspaper in the country for free.
That's not what free speech is.

------
maverick_iceman
Wow, I'm really depressed by the comments here. Looks like the HN liberals are
ready to ban any conservative views. This goes on to confirm my belief that
the left hates freedom of speech.

~~~
vorotato
A person looked only for evidence which confirmed their existing beliefs and
felt vindicated. Divergent from reality and confident of their unquestioned
positions they began to share the delusion with others.

