People have their limits. Most people aren’t absolutists, taking their philosophy to the extreme and utterly unable to make exceptions to their rules when egregious examples show up.
Turns out, most people don’t just dislike gab, they think it’s dangerous not to take action and don’t want to be on the eventual wall of people who Did Nothing when retrospection comes.
That’s not really bias, it’s called having a moral compass. You’re free to disagree with its tuning of course.
>People have their limits. Most people aren’t absolutists, taking their philosophy to the extreme and utterly unable to make exceptions to their rules when egregious examples show up.
If your morals don't hold up when pushed to their limits, it's that you have a poor understanding of what your morals are. A lot of people like free software because it's hip, but when faced with the very reason free software exists they turn back on it very fast.
That's a very simplistic way of looking at the world. It turns out that things are frequently more complicated than absolutist rules allow for, and the world isn't a series of black and white with bright lines between them. Most people are actually very much okay with "Thou shalt not kill" being quite a bit more nuanced in reality, because it turns out most real-world moral questions are a little more complicated than single questions.
>Most people are actually very much okay with "Thou shalt not kill"
I don't think that's true. Most people are very vengeful and do not hold that view.
>It turns out that things are frequently more complicated than absolutist rules allow for
imo "absolutist" is mostly used pejoratively. It's dissonance to believe both "People should be able to express themselves however they way" and "Racists should be ostracized." The logical consequence of the second is to disallow racists to speak. It might be OK according to your moral compass, but that's antithesis to free speech and more akin to "people should be able to express themselves if what they say is something I allow."
> If your morals don't hold up when pushed to their limits
I think you're missing the point here that their morals aren't your morals and they can be entirely self-consistent and do what they're doing if they don't share your exact priorities. They obviously prioritize other concerns above freedom of speech absolutism and they aren't hiding that, thus remaining entirely consistent within their frame of reference.
I don't doubt they have their own morals, but these same people say they hold free speech as moral. The whole point of free speech is to allow for speech you find reprehensible. If not, what's the point?
> The whole point of free speech is to allow for speech you find reprehensible
No one is stopping Gab from speaking.
FDroid is just refusing to amplify their speech.
Since when did "free speech" == "freedom to force other people to publish my speech"?
But you know what, here's an idea: I have a sign I want to put on your lawn. I'm afraid it's an incredibly offensive sign and you and your neighbours might not like it. But I wanna put it on your lawn anyway.
Judging by your comments here, I assume you're totally cool with that, right? I mean, according to you, denying my request to put my incredibly offensive lawn sign in front of your house would be an abridgement of my freedom of speech, right?
But my lawn is not a platform. And even then, FDroid is a small enough platform that they should be allowed to do whatever they want. But then it's OK to point out the perceived hypocrisy in having a free software platform that censors apps they disagree with.
Free software is not really about free speech, but usually both philosophies are held together since they are somewhat related.
Or are you now saying these rights kinda depend? If so, what's the threshold? What makes your lawn special? Does it need to be a particularly big lawn? Do you need to have control of a lot of different lawns? I'm really confused. You seemed so certain that free speech was an absolute right, and that I can force others to amplify my speech, but now here you are suggesting there may be caveats...
> Free software is not really about free speech, but usually both philosophies are held together since they are somewhat related.
According to you. I certainly don't see them as being connected whatsoever.
Maybe your real problem is you and FDroid see the purpose of open source and free software differently.
I think you're being disingenuous, I don't use my lawn to distribute other people's apps/signs, it's not its purpose, and I don't advertise it as such.
Also:
>FDroid is a small enough platform that they should be allowed to do whatever they want. But then it's OK to point out the perceived hypocrisy in having a free software platform that censors apps they disagree with.
>I think you're being disingenuous, I don't use my lawn to distribute other people's apps/signs, it's not its purpose, and I don't advertise it as such.
That's irrelevant, at least under US law. If your daughter sells lemonade on that lawn, is it more of a platform? Can I then post signs all over your lawn about the dangers of lemonade or citrus?
Of course not. Because on your private property, you exercise your own free speech rights by allowing/disallowing what ever you choose.
Why should it be any different on F-Droid's private property? Do the people who own F-Droid have less free speech rights than you do? If you believe so, please explain your reasoning, as I don't see the difference.
> I don't use my lawn to distribute other people's apps/signs, it's not its purpose, and I don't advertise it as such.
And I suppose somewhere FDroid advertises itself as an open, censorship-free site for app distribution with no caveats or restrictions?
If so, please, point me to your evidence.
If it's just because "but they claim to value free software", see my reply (which included ninja edits): free software != free speech. No, they are not in fact related in any way. One can be supportive of free software without being an absolutist regarding freedom of expression.
Of course, that's understandable confusion. Free (as in no cost), free (as in I can control my own systems and products), and free (as in I can speak without government censorship) are all very different uses of the word "free", and I can see how folks might get them mixed up.
>If it's just because "but they claim to value free software", see my reply (which included ninja edits): free software != free speech.
I agree with you on this. The reason I believe they're somewhat related is that free software ensures users always have access to a software and can modify it if they disagree with the author. The spirit of that I think concedes that users should be allowed to use the software whoever they are/whatever they say/etc.
Now of course free software doesn't require you to provide them with the platform to run the software, but in spirit it definitely enables a discrimination-free permission to use it. EDIT: So having a platform deny access when it values such spirit is somewhat disagreeable.
"free software ensures users always have access to a software and can modify it if they disagree with the author."
IMO this is a really terrible reason to use free software/open source, and not a positive point in its favor. Forking is a really costly process and leads to fragmentation and most of the time is unnecessary. To me the main benefit of open source is that it leads to a global collaboration and cooperation, and it gives new avenues for people to be able to agree with each other. From what I've seen, projects where the maintainers are just disagreeable all the time usually don't even tend to get off the ground at all.
> So having a platform deny access when it values such spirit is somewhat disagreeable.
If Android required a platform for software distribution, I might agree, but Gab can (and does) post their APK right on their website. So Gab is experiencing no curtailment of their speech rights by FDroid refusing to traffick in their speech, nor are the users experiencing any curtailment in their right to use their device, or the software, as they see fit.
You'd have more of a leg to stand on if this was about iOS and the Apple store, which doesn't allow for any kind of sideloading.
But Android? Sorry, I have no sympathy and I see no hypocrisy in FDroid's actions.
They don't think that's the point, which is what matters. They clearly have limits to free speech that you don't have because they are not free speech absolutists (like most people) while you are a free speech absolutist. They probably draw a limit at speech that they consider harmful[1], as most people do. If most people didn't have these limits, then harassment, death threats and so on would all be generally acceptable and legal, but they aren't.
>If your morals don't hold up when pushed to their limits, it's that you have a poor understanding of what your morals are.
No, that's not the case. Morals don't have to be black and white because the world isn't black and white.
Nuance is the name of the game in morality. The world is shades of gray, everything has more context than you can imagine. Morals isn't mathmatics, you can't put it on an equation and say "X always equals Y in all situations"
Here's an example. Stealing is wrong. But what if you're stealing bread because that's the only way you can get food, and you're stealing it from Jeff Bezos who was just going to let it rot. Is that still wrong? Even if it has no value to Jeff B? Even if it means your death if you don't?
>Stealing is wrong. But what if you're stealing bread because that's the only way you can get food, and you're stealing it from Jeff Bezos who was just going to let it rot. Is that still wrong? Even if it has no value to Jeff B? Even if it means your death if you don't?
Which is a misunderstanding of what you really mean by "stealing is wrong."
In that example, Bezos doesn't care about the sandwish, so perhaps you mean "stealing is wrong if it deprives someone of something they cherish." Or maybe you hold your life above your morals, but then you have to recognize what you're doing is amoral.
People are either for free speech or against it. If a site that states "supporting free speech" as reason for their existence decides against free speech, it is disappointing.
Of course everybody can decide what they want, but it can still be disappointing and a betrayal of trust.
>Turns out, most people don’t just dislike gab, they think it’s dangerous not to take action and don’t want to be on the eventual wall of people who Did Nothing when retrospection comes.
The vast majority of people who support this deplatforming have been whipped up into a hysteria by their peers and media and unironically believe that half the country belongs to the party of racism and white supremacy and anti-science, and that platforms like gab are merely hangouts for extremism and insurrection plotting.
Ironically, this sort of treatment is going to breed extremism, and if I may say, rightly so. You don't demonize and dehumanize half the country by associating them with "whiteness" and nazism, especially while claiming to be anti-racist.
At best, this path leads to construction of a parallel society, with it's own infrastructure. At worst, genocide, but which side will do the genociding is hard to predict, the way things are going.
There's no excuse for this blatand politicization of all of our institutions, and the way that they all implicitly and explicitly collude to effectively deny voices to half of the country while worshipping SCIENCE! as though it were some unreproachable religion.
I agree that demonizing and “othering” people on the Other Side is a bad idea for the reasons you state. I also agree with your overall point.
I disagree that deplatforming gab is demonizing anybody. It’s tackling an absolute cesspool of a community. It’s among the worst of the worst that’s available out there. I’m sure they’ll survive without it.
That's only because our media does not scrutinize the other side with the same intensity. You have literal communists LARPing about the coming revolution on reddit alongside entire subreddits dedicated to celebrating deaths among so called "plague rats", on a platform where the TOS ostensibly state that there is no tolerance for such behavior. But it's not surprising given that for a brief period last year the TOS explicitly stated that hate against the "majority group" (i.e. white people) is totally fine.
If this were legitimately about extremism it'd be one thing, but the way it is shaping up, one side's extremism gets a pass, and that bias is toxic to a functioning society. The same way that excuses were made by all of our institutions for the nationwide, year long protests during a pandemic. Our institutions have clearly chosen a side.
And I'm not necessarily saying that the act of deplatforming gab is demonization, but what I am saying is that this one sided demonization/dehumanization is used as an excuse to target platforms like gab.
Your problem is not with the actions taken against gab but with the lack of consistent actions taken against similar cesspools.
There’s nothing I can do about that. Nothing will be achieved by hooking onto this in a whataboutist format, it’s just irrelevant.
I read your post as a hopeless grievance but rest assured that I have concerns of my own about how much leeway is given to left leaning platforms as well. But that doesn’t invalidate how bad Gab is. This world view is consistent.
It might be considered unkind to make fun of the dead and dying but arguably such examples are made after the persons own stupidity killed them and the point of the example isn't merely to glory in their death but prevent others from joining them in the grave.
Anyone who can't tell the difference between look at suzy she's made sarcastic comments about vaccines every day up until the day she died of covid don't be like suzy and keep your powder dry pretty soon we shall all get together and murder the libtards isn't looking very hard.
One encourages death and violence the other mocks the harm that has already come about and will continue to come about. The former is against most civil discussion forums rules and the latter is allowed many places. Before they decry uneven enforcement they might do well to understand the rules.
>It might be considered unkind to make fun of the dead and dying but arguably such examples are made after the persons own stupidity killed them and the point of the example isn't merely to glory in their death but prevent others from joining them in the grave
You're talking about a virus with a 99.99%+ survival rate in healthy people under 40, not the damn plague. And I know we're not allowed to discuss it, but can you explain why cases are as high as they've ever been in, say, Israel and England, when they're 70-80%+ vaccinated, if these vaccines are so safe and effective? Why does media continue to push the lie that the majority of deaths are in the unvaccinated when official UK data shows vaccinated and unvaccinated death rates at approximate parity with vaccination rate? I.E. the DATA clearly shows that vaccines are not nearly as effective as claimed.
Don't you think it's a little ridiculous that there is effectively no platform outside of 4chan where such questions can even be asked? How is that good for society, to unquestioningly follow the same institutions that have repeatedly and massively blundered while pursuing their own personal financial interests? Do you deny that the authoritarians making this policy are humans like you and I, subject to the same errors and temptations as anyone else?
Informed consent is predicated upon freedom of discussion, of which there effectively is none, because suddenly citizens across the western world are cheering on mass censorship and suppression of the very dissent that is required for a functioning society.
And just as you don't need to be an expert in astrology to understand that it is bunk, you don't need a PHD in virology to see the glaring institutional issues in academia/industry/regulation which cause incentives to align perversely. If it is in fact true that the vaccines are innefective and/or dangerous, there is now the momentum of billions of dollars and tens of thousands of careers and reputations on the line, potentially keeping this fact under wraps. It's not a conspiracy, its emergent pressure. In such a case it is up to laypeople to hold their governments accountable, but instead we are welcoming our own censorship. Something is going to break.
You seem to have gotten sidetracked by an example.
Regardless there are plenty of platforms outside of 4chan where you can discuss this. You just need to have some initial trust that people are having good faith discussions. Even here unfortunately almost all the time I’ve seen people bringing up the effectiveness of vaccines, it was to make an antivax point. That’s not good faith, it’s agenda driven trolling.
> You just need to have some initial trust that people are having good faith discussions
>That’s not good faith, it’s agenda driven trolling.
Your self-contradiction is an example of part of the problem. There's an assumption that any "anti-vax" (also a dishonest conflation, people are arguing about the covid vaccine, not all vaccines) is automatically in bad faith/part of an agenda/trolling.
You only see "anti-vax" posts because pro vax is the default and is the only allowed perspective among submissions. This is what dissent looks like, its not "trolling" or "bad faith".
>Regardless there are plenty of platforms outside of 4chan where you can discuss this
Nonsense, exactly because of the attitudes like yours. Anything not in line with "safe and effective" propaganda is banned/deleted as "misinformation" or dismissed as "bad faith trolling".
You're applying the same bias to my posts, that you're accusing me of.
I've myself been plenty critical of the COVID vaccines and/or rules when it was warranted, and I was able to make my point pretty safely and discuss it without it being dismissed as trolling or deleted as misinformation.
So maybe, just maybe, the stuff that is deleted/banned/dismissed is in fact a duck. Because most anti-vax points as argued today on HN are misinformation-driven. If you disagree with that, you've been the victim of misinformation. And if you disagree with that, I can't do anything for you, you have to be open to being wrong sometimes.
(And it's easy to turn that last sentence into "yeah well what if YOU'RE wrong". If I am, that is my cross to bear, but I'm absolutely open to it being the case. It doesn't change the above.)
What about death threats? What about organizing a lynch mob? What about someone else posting your personal info and browser history? What about extortion attempts? What about copies of anything you've ever written?
And we can't just draw the line here when considering the ramifications of absolute free speech. Basically everything that involves human art of creativity is free speech. If that's absolute then any depths of depravity is free. One could fake horrible, violent, traumatizing acts being performed by people on other people and then claim it is in fact those people, spread it on billboards and across from schools, and that's all under the purview of free speech.
> My point of view is: let everybody say whatever they want. Doesn't get more unbiased than that.
That assumes the individual’s right to speak is greater than the community’s right to shut them up, and is therefore biased in favour of the individual.
What is "the community's right to shut somebody up"? If a country elects a dictator, it is fine if that dictator then shuts people up?
Mastodon (afaik) already has the feature that communities can decide what outside content can enter their servers. What is the point on making it impossible for others to use the software at all? It doesn't server the purpose of protecting that community from nasty speech, because that is already accomplished by not communicating with the evil servers.
> > My point of view is: let everybody say whatever they want. Doesn't get more unbiased than that.
>That assumes the individual’s right to speak is greater than the community’s right to shut them up, and is therefore biased in favour of the individual.
I completely disagree. The individual's right to speak is greater (at least in the US) than the government's right to shut them up.
However, other individuals (or a group of individuals, such as a corporation like F-Droid) have the same right to speak, as well as the right to control the speech on their private property.
There is an important distinction there. From a legal standpoint, the government are restricted from (except in very narrow circumstances) limiting an individual's speech.
However, private actors have no such restrictions on their private property.
a "community" of individuals can absolutely express their dislike/dissatisfaction with the speech of others by banning them from their private property.
It's only the government that's restricted from doing so.
My comment is not about the best way to organise society. It’s pointing out that if you believe that view, you still have a bias. The OP’s comment sounded like “I’m not biased, because my view is objectively correct”.
>My comment is not about the best way to organise society. It’s pointing out that if you believe that view, you still have a bias. The OP’s comment sounded like “I’m not biased, because my view is objectively correct”.
My misunderstanding. Apologies.
Upon reflection, I think my comment dovetails nicely with your point.
"Most people," huh? You sure are an expert on what "most people" think. Maybe just replace that phrase with "I" if you want to stop being intellectually dishonest.
People have their limits. Most people aren’t absolutists, taking their philosophy to the extreme and utterly unable to make exceptions to their rules when egregious examples show up.
Turns out, most people don’t just dislike gab, they think it’s dangerous not to take action and don’t want to be on the eventual wall of people who Did Nothing when retrospection comes.
That’s not really bias, it’s called having a moral compass. You’re free to disagree with its tuning of course.