It might do that too, but access to information is just so utterly critical, and exponentially moreso in circumstances where government brutally cracks down on it, as we saw in Egypt during the Arab Spring and we're seeing in Iran presently.
Then again, Egypt was definitely driven by Western agitators, as was the case Iran recently. Iran probably got Russian tech to trace starlink users during the blackout which put a target on many Western assets in Iran. I'm not saying the Iran government didn't also kill and torture independent actors nor that I support state violence (against its citizens, in this case). Just saying that any government will use violence to stay in power and to ensure regime change doesn't happen outside of whatever system the state upholds.
> If they didn't have a hand in the protests, that seems like a stunning failure on the part of the US State Department to support their own policies
This is nothing but evidence free speculation. What you’re doing is undermining the validity of the protest movement and parroting the line of the Iranian government. It’s disgusting. Take this shit somewhere else.
No my point is that the idea that the protests aren’t organic is deeply fucking ignorant and gross. It’s this whole line of thinking that everything turns on US action in the world, which is how 19 year olds think after they read Howard Zin or some essay by Chomsky for the first time. It’s unserious on top of robbing a lot of brave people of their own agency.
> No my point is that the idea that the protests aren’t organic is deeply fucking ignorant and gross.
Scott Bessent, at the WEF [0], explained that:
> President Trump ordered treasury and our OFAC division, (Office of Foreign Asset Control) to put maximum pressure on Iran, and it’s worked because in December, their economy collapsed, we saw a major bank go under, the central bank has started to print money, there is a dollar shortage, they are not able to get imports and this is why the people took to the streets.
So it is organic insofar as the US is working hard to water and nourish something. This has been a huge push to destabilise and unseat the Iranian regime, the idea that they didn't have some people involved in the protests is hard to countenance. It'd be incompetence of the grossest variety. Technically possible? Yeah. A reasonable prior? No.
It's hardly evidence-free, this stuff [0, 1, 2] has been making international news headlines for months. And the last time the US was involved in toppling Iran they used paid-for protests [3] so it is barely speculative to say they'd do again what worked last time. That is just common sense on their part. If they haven't done that, then people will be fired in the US executive for incompetence because that is the cheapest way to achieve their rather clear goals of rolling Iran's power structures. If you don't believe that they did that, who do you think is responsible for that failure on the US government's part?
It is unfortunate that the US's actions right now undermined whatever validity you feel the protests had. I certainly agree it is disgusting - and also bad for US interests so it is curious why they're doing it. Take it up with them if you have a problem with the idea, I'm not a US general or policy maker.
Evidence to the contrary abounds regarding Egypt. Secretary of State Clinton famously rejected the popularly-elected Muslim Brotherhood government and pledged support to Mubarak. This tacit approval led him to have a successful coup against the popularly elected government.
If by "western" you meant some other power then you should be specific. Western as a term is imprecise and can be interpreted differently depending on the audience.
I wish more people volunteered to moderate online communities. Especially political ones.
It’s taking way too long for normal people to realize they have a stake and imperative to be part of these communities. Speech is shaped here, and many God awful decisions have to be made at scale.
There is no cost to holding the position you stated, and no one wants to get their hand dirty, or see how the sausage is made. You have to regular decide if this comment is actually hate speech, actual debate, or someone “asking questions”. Who knows what the actual false positive/negative rates are.
The sheer amount of filters, regexes and slur lists needed to stay abreast of toxicity and hate speech are absurdism at its best.
Nothing happens without an informed citizenry. The foundations of speech online are collapsing and weak. There need to be more citizen view points from the ground, deciding how they want this domain to operate.
> It was a 2021 case involving Andy Grote, a local politician, that captured the country's attention. Grote complained about a tweet that called him a "pimmel," a German word for the male anatomy. His complaint triggered a police raid and accusations of excessive censorship by the government.
A police raid for calling a politician a dick. Let it sink.
That was a overall very rarely occurring abuse of power of a politician in charge of leading local law enforcement. It was declared illegal later. And you take that as a proof for what about the whole of Germany?
> > His unit has successfully prosecuted about 750 hate speech cases over the last four years.
> But sure, abuse of power is so rare. Nothing to see here.
This would make your point if those hate speech cases were all the same as your Andy Grote example.
Otherwise it's like pointing at one defendant winning a road traffic law case due to dashcam footage showing the police were making things up, as evidence that all road traffic law prosecutions are abusing power.
You're missing the point. That's exactly how democratic governments cloak fascist behavior everywhere: The punishment IS THE PROCESS.
People in Germany (and the UK and other places) have to self censor because they don't want to be visited by the police and then dragged through courts for months/years, even though it eventually gets thrown out and you get to walk away innocent, you still had to suffer the entire prosecution process, which nobody wants to, so they keep their mouth shut.
The stress toll of having to go through all that annoying grind through the legal system, even though you did nothing wrong and what the government is doing will be considered illegal, is how the government preemptively keeps people in line.
>That was a overall very rarely occurring abuse of power
Very rare?! Unless there's direct consequences with actual punishment on government officials for illegally abusing the legal system on citizens just because they hear stuff they don't like, then they will keep throwing prosecutions at innocent people just to keep them in check since currently they have nothing stopping them from this abuse turning from rare to being the norm.
Except for the Grote case you can very well criticize politicians, even in somewhat questionable language without LE raiding your home. That one case was an exception.
Just look at any political thread in any social media in German language. There is plenty of criticism or even insults regarding government officials, without them getting raided. It is only extreme cases (often with calls for violence) which trigger LE. So the chilling effect is missing or at least it has little influence.
A little bit like a country's leader calling for the death penalty for a decorated pilot and astronaut who reminded service members of their duty to reject unlawful orders.
In Italy there's a politician named Gasparri who has made a career (30+ years) of barring himself behind Parlamentary immunity and insulting on citizens/journalists. When they respond he sues them for libel or similar asking moral damages.
It does. That's why GrapheneOS left France; Signal is considering doing so to if ChatControl passes. Von Der Leyen and Breton clearly mentioned the possibility of banning X. And there are many other "signals".
But yeah we get it, there's bad censorhip (Iran, China, Russia), and there is the good censorhip, sorry, i meant "protection of children", when it's the EU. :o)
> there's bad censorhip (Iran, China, Russia), and there is the good censorhip
I understand that you're being facetious here, but this is literally true.
Words kill people sometimes, and in the same way that my right to swing my arm stops where your nose begins your right to say whatever you want stops where my safety begins.
Or to rephrase it, nobody can have free speech at all if others are allowed to threaten your health and safety for it, which automatically implies that violent and hateful speech must be curtailed. It is a variation on the paradox of tolerance.
Yes, there is room to debate exactly where the line is, but the fact that there is a line is fairly well settled except amongst the rabid.
I dont need Thierry Breton or Van Der Leyen to tell me which podcasts I am allowed to listened to, but thanks for the well-intentionned thoughts for my safety anyway.
I dont care at all for your safety, I care for mine and that of my family and I think it's fair to insist that you don't get to put my life in jeopardy because you feel like you should be immune to the consequences of your speech.
I would be very interested in hearing some of these words capable of killing. I have only heard of such words in fiction so I am quite surprised to learn they are real.
In the 1950s, the Reverend Ian Paisley would organise rallies in the streets of Belfast and when speaking at those rallies, read out the addresses of Catholic homes and businesses on those streets. The crowd would then attack those homes and businesses.
If there is a direct call to action then they should be held responsible, but like I said I don't know what the context is or what was said in the Belfast situation.
The words the Nazis said were irrelevant. They directed people to kill and as such they were guilty.
I think someone who goes and attacks somebody is guilty. They cannot use the excuse they were following orders. The words didn't take control of them like a spell. They made the conscious choice to commit violence and as such the guilt is on them, not the bat.
We've had several World Wars (so far) thanks largely to words. I'm not sure what your contention really is, except that maybe you dont like the idea of freedom coming with responsibility for the ways in which you use it.
Nobody died from the words? Did Hitler say millions should die and millions dropped dead? It was the war, the concentration camps, etc that killed people.
Yes, words led to that, but the onus of the deaths are on those who did the killing, not the words. Could the Nazis in the Nuremberg trials have used the excuse that it was actually the words doing the killing and as such they were innocent?
If you want to say words kill, in the way you are saying, then words have killed most people that have been killed. If we take an example where somebody gets turned down and then gets killed for it, would you say words killed that person? Should we ban turning people down? You do want words that kill to be banned after all.
I'm reminded of a phrase I leaned as a kid that starts with sticks and stones...
Ahhh. Another of Elon's absolutists? Fine all words are ok now. So we make all these things legal:
Obscenity in any context - Won't someone not think of the children?
Child sexual abuse material - Fine in the new regime as long as you didn't record it yourself, right?
Incitement to imminent lawless action - You only told them who to murder, right?
True threats and harassment - All those people can just die. Speech is the ONLY freedom that matters. Serious expressions of intent to commit unlawful violence be damned.
Fighting words - Sure - Bait them till they hit you then the cops can come arrest THEM. Aren't you clever! And totally free from consequences for your actions! Ideal!
Defamation - Why CAN'T we just make stuff up about our enemies, friends, and loved ones? Those suckers rights are far less important than ours after all!
Fraud and false commercial speech - All legal now! Finally the freedom to rip off old ladies and the mentally unwell! Thank god for liberty!
IP violations - Again, free speech is absolute now so nobody can own anything that can be conveyed via language. Yay!
Or... we could just be reasonable about it and say that the limit's of free speech are where they start to impinge on other peoples liberties. Your call.
First, let me start off saying I don't like Elon and think he is a terrible person.
Next, my issue is primarily on your issue with hateful speech, I should have been more clear. I wrote it on my phone and didn't feel like expanding upon what I was trying to say. I should have conveyed my thoughts better.
I will explain my position more clearly.
I think pushing what you are when it comes to hateful speech is dangerous. Using your own logic the comment I am replying to could be illegal. You said "hateful speech must be curtailed". What you said about Elon is clearly derogatory and could easily be considered hateful. If the laws were in place, I think with how petty Elon is, he would go after people who are critical of him like yourself.
Having emotional harm is not really something that can be determined which is the primary harm that hate speech causes. Every person is different so you wouldn't have a way to know what you could say. The only way to know if something is hateful is to ask the person if they were intending it to be hateful or if the recipient found it hateful.
When you have vague terms that could be determined by emotion rather than an objective measure you are going to run into issues. Obviously sometimes there will be subjective measures, but we need to minimize them whenever possible.
If somebody is directing somebody to kill somebody that is causing physical harm towards an individual and should be illegal.
Going back to the world war examples. Hitler would be guilty of directing people to cause physical harm.
If Hitler said to kill somebody I don't consider that to be different than if Hitler just pointed and somebody and then turned his finger into a gun. The issue wasn't what he said or didn't say, it was what he was directing somebody to do.
If Hitler said something like we have economic issues and Jews run the banks, that would probably be considered hateful by many people. I don't think it should be illegal. If Hitler added let's kill the Jews, that would be directing people to commit violence and would not be legal.
Hitler hating the Jews in the first statement doesn't mean he should go to jail. It didn't cause a normal person to go out and commit the Holocaust.
> What you said about Elon is clearly derogatory and could easily be considered hateful.
It was from an actual quote of his in which he claimed to be a "free speech absolutist." I did mean it in a derogatory way, because just repeating it makes him seem silly, but it's an actual quote so not slanderous or anything.
That said, I agree that nobody has the right to live a life free of criticism and some folks need thicker skin (including myself from time to time).
>If somebody is directing somebody to kill somebody that is causing physical harm towards an individual and should be illegal
Well there you go. We both agree that some speech has to be illegal, we just disagree as to exactly where that line is. I think it's perfectly reasonable for us to disagree about *exactly* where the line is, as long as everyone understands that there is a line.
To me that line is very simple: My rights end where yours start, and vice versa. As far as I can tell it's the only sensible basis for any kind of society. You can make it more complicated if you want, but the only way to get more "freedom" than with my plan is to take away someone else's and I'm not cool with that.
>"[...] But we should claim the right to suppress them [intolerant ideologies] if necessary even by force; for it may easily turn out that they are not prepared to meet us on the level of rational argument, but begin by denouncing all argument; they may forbid their followers to listen to rational argument, because it is deceptive, and teach them to answer arguments by the use of their fists or pistols."
The paradox of tolerance is not about censoring others. If anything, censorship lands on the side of the intolerant of this paradox.
If educating people worked there wouldn’t be any obese people, or drunkards, or smokers, druggies, gamblers, people addicted to doomscrolling or video games or ragebait "news" or…
Education is as useful as preaching abstinence at horny teenagers instead of providing access to contraceptives
Cause and correlation, education gives you options, it always comes to a choice, I know the donuts lead somewhere but I choose to eat two anyway.
Education doesn't cause good choices but it is sometimes correlated to better situations, the difference between the criminals in prison and the ones in the C suite is only education.
> If educating people worked there wouldn’t be any obese people, or drunkards
This assumes that a) everyone is the same, and b) education would always work. Matthew Perry explained that this is not the case. Some people respond differently to drugs. Whether these people are educated or not, changes very little. Education helps, but not in the way as to be able to bypass physiological aspects completely.
> Education is as useful as preaching abstinence at horny teenagers instead of providing access to contraceptives
Education can still help. For instance, I decided very early on that the best way to avoid e. g. addiction is to not "give in and try once". So I never tried drugs (ok ok, I did drink a beer occasionally). This was the much simpler and easier strategy to pursue, simply via avoidance behaviour.
Thus I disagree that the premise can be "if educating worked" - people will always respond differently to drugs. And they will have different strategies to cope with something too - some strategies work, others don't work. One can not generalize this.
Many people believe their mind is a passive reflection of reality, thus any change that happens to mind is infallible by definition. I wonder how can they possibly resist addiction with such mindset.
Clearly education doesn't work, so Europe must ban any speech concerning fattening foods, drinking alcohol, smoking, drugs, gambling, upsetting news and video games.
If you oppose these speech bans... Why you're as silly as a preacher telling teens not to fuck!
But can't you then set up a system such that if a person only picks one source or a few sources, and that turns out to be bad, that it primarily impacts negatively only themselves? Letting it be their own responsibility?
Intuitively yes, but it's possible that this is one of our biases speaking
From my memory (might be mistaken) there have been attempts to somewhat study this via polls etc, and determined that coverage via propaganda (specifically Fox News) is less helpful then randomly guessing what actually happened...
But ymmv, social studies are always hard to trust, because it's borderline impossible to prove cause and effect
> From my memory (might be mistaken) there have been attempts to somewhat study this via polls etc, and determined that coverage via propaganda (specifically Fox News) is less helpful then randomly guessing what actually happened...
Ironically the studies of that nature are often themselves a form of propaganda, because it's entirely straightforward to structure the study to produce your preferred outcome.
There is a well-known human bias where people use information they know to try to guess information they don't. If you're given three random people and the only thing anyone has told you about them is that one is a drug addict and then you're asked to guess which one is a thief, more people are going to guess the drug addict. So now all you have to do is find a situation where the thief isn't actually the drug addict, let the media outlet tell people which one is the drug addict, and you'll have people guessing the wrong answer a higher proportion of the time than they would by choosing at random.
In this thread, which comment gave you the impression they were in favor of censorship?
I hope it's not me, whom you responded to, because I cannot fathom how you could've gotten that impression considering my phrasing...what's up with this topic getting so many people with arguing via complete strawmen
Then you failed at education if a prompt can undo decades of education.
And the failure of education was an intentional feature, not a bug, since the government wants obedient tax cattle that will easily accept their propaganda at elections, not freethinkers that question everything because then they might notice your lies and corruption.
It's like building a backdoor into your system thinking you're the only one who gets to use it for the upper hand, but then throw fits when everyone else is using your backdoors to defeat you.
