Not tolerating xenophobia, racism and bigots in general is a big point for a lot of people. The paradox of tolerance is something that many people should consider.
The problem isn't with the not tolerating, it's with the pushing for others not to tolerate. Freedom requires choice.
Our problem is that we've built almost our entire ecosystem on systems where a single actor's intolerance can deny millions of people access to a product. This seemed like a good idea at the time. Apparently what it comes down to is the entire economy needs to be duplicated? Banks, payment providers, app stores, content delivery networks, web hosting, all the way to operating systems. I didn't realize that it would take that much to get the right to access any app or social network I want to? But apparently that's where the so-called paradox of tolerance has led us.
Seems we should have seen this coming. A certain xkcd about infrastructures comes to mind. Oh well. Since true decentralization is possible, it's just a matter of time in the end.
You don't have to tolerate the intolerant, and the people running the app stores are free to make their choices of who they allow into the store.
If you want to be associated with fascists and racists, that is up to you, but you will not be welcome in civilised places. You can always run your own app store which allows those groups.
> Apparently what it comes down to is the entire economy needs to be duplicated? Banks, payment providers, app stores, content delivery networks, web hosting, all the way to operating systems.
What it comes down to is if you're a fascist you won't be allowed to participate in the economy at all to spread your message. Service providers who cater to fascists will be cut off by the banks, and banks that refuse to do their due diligence w.r.t. fash in their customer ranks will be singled out for more in-depth investigation by federal authorities.
> And people very reasonably ask – hey, I notice my side kind of controls all of this stuff, the situation is actually asymmetrical, they have no way of retaliating, maybe we should just grind our enemies beneath our boots this one time.
> And then when it turns out that the enemies can just leave and start their own institutions, with horrendous results for everybody, the cry goes up “Wait, that’s unfair! Nobody ever said you could do that! Come back so we can grind you beneath our boots some more!”
I don't think often of the right to "go away if you don't like something", but that's because it's so basic and essential I barely consider it.
Most people operate on a caricature version of the paradox, as opposed to Popper's more measured original.
Most go with something like "If we tolerate people who aren't 100% our version of kumbaya, we'll end up in tyranny", when Popper's original is restricted to people who have stopped listening, and would make their argument with pistols.
Most of the time, the paradox citers are closer to the "not listening" camp than not. Many are hideously fundamentalist ideologues who want to limit discussion to what they themselves find acceptable, not to deplatforming things that really try to deprive others of their freedom of choice.
If Jan. 6 wasn't proof enough that the "election was stolen" crowd has stopped listening and is willing to make their point with arms, I don't know what would suffice for you.
Jan 6 is proof that 0.001% of the "election was stolen" crowd has stopped listening and would make their argument with pistols. We're talking about people expressing heterodox opinions on social media. They are not the same group. Particularly since the LARPers are in jail.
First, Jan 6 is not relevant to the broader claim, and second is that most of the people on Jan 6th came there to protest, and did not in fact invade the Capitol building. The larpers and other assorted idiots who did pretty surely have lawsuits pending against them for obvious reasons. The vast throng may have been deluded, but did not choose to make their point with arms.
"Hakuin used to tell his pupils about an old woman who had a teashop, praising her understanding of Zen. The pupils refused to believe what he told them and would go to the teashop to find out for themselves.
Whenever the woman saw them coming she could tell at once whether they had come for tea or to look into her grasp of Zen. In the former case, she would serve them graciously. In the latter, she would beckon to the pupils to come behind her screen. The instant they obeyed, she would strike them with a fire-poker.
Nine out of ten of them could not escape her beating."
It is a great metaphor. Nine out of ten applications of the tolerance paradox do not pass the fire poker test. One needs a certain level of enlightenment and maturity of judgement to apply it, otherwise it can turn into metooism, mob behavior and plain hypocrisy.
>> "It is a great metaphor. Nine out of ten applications of the tolerance paradox do not pass the fire poker test. One needs a certain level of enlightenment and maturity of judgement to apply it, otherwise it can turn into metooism, mob behavior and plain hypocrisy."
You used a lot of words to make a mundane, unsupported assertion sound profound. Do you have any real examples?
> If it is just users, why ban them and not browsers or anything that can access Facebook?
Because Facebook is controlled by the right people, and Gab is not.
Consider the unbelievably offensive and sometimes illegal content (including child porn) that's been hosted on Reddit. They've cleaned up significantly recently to be more advertiser-friendly, but they were able to host all that content for years without getting deplatformed or facing any real consequences. Because Reddit is controlled by the right people. It's all about power.
> The paradox of tolerance is something that many people should consider.
Or even read, it’s barely longer than a page and yet I see it mischaracterised on these threads repeatedly by people who have clearly not read it.
For those with too short an attention span to even search for the text, let alone read it, and to save them from the mendacious cartoon that purports to boil it down, here’s what it says in two lines:
- speech should beget speech, no matter how disagreeable
- intolerance is defined as those who will not engage in speech and have turned to violence instead
That is not the same as deplatforming “bigots”, or punching Nazis. Quite the opposite.
Criticizing speech and advocating, on the basis of that criticism, that people should choose not to relay the criticized speech is speech.
Choosing what speech to relay or not is speech (except when it is “press”, but those are effectively aspects of the same thing called out separately to prevent an artificial distinction from being used to regulate speech.)
Deplatforming is speech, from advocacy to execution.
> Censorship (of which deplatforming is one form) is not the same as choosing not to listen and hence, is not part of freedom of speech.
Deplatforming is choosing not to actively relay speech. While, yes, such does (as “self-censorship”) fit in some of the broader conceptions of censorship, it's absolutely part of the freedom of speech (and central to the idea of the “marketplace of ideas”, the same as people being free not to buy, distribute, and resell your goods is central to classical markets in goods and services.)
The “freedom of speech” isn't limited to choosing not to listen, hence why it isn't called the “freedom to choose not to listen”. Freedom from making speech at the direction of another party is at least as fundamental as freedom not to listen.
Freedom of speech is called freedom of speech and not the “freedom to choose not to listen” because the freedom not to listen is implied by freedom of speech, for anyone that's thought about it. And it's easier to say free speech than recite On Liberty. Shorthand is usually enough.
Deplatforming is censorship because, if done actively and exceptionally (i.e. discriminatorially and out of the ordinary routine) then it is the attempt to prevent the speaker from speaking and anyone wishing to listeners being able to listen.
It seems to me that you're conflating distribution with purchase in your analogy, which might explain your subsequent reasoning, though I find them to be quite different things. If you are going to conflate them then distributors refusing to distribute the goods of gays or blacks based on them being gay or black, given that they usually distribute goods from non-gays and non-blacks, that is not prejudicial discrimination?
I would not agree with that in a marketplace, and that wouldn't fit with my conception of freedom of speech either, given the analogy.
If, however, we were talking about private individuals and not distributors, then I agree that they should be able to choose who they purchase from or even sell to - in a private capacity, not as a business - whether based on prejudice or not. Just as with speaking and listening.
Our problem is that we've built almost our entire ecosystem on systems where a single actor's intolerance can deny millions of people access to a product. This seemed like a good idea at the time. Apparently what it comes down to is the entire economy needs to be duplicated? Banks, payment providers, app stores, content delivery networks, web hosting, all the way to operating systems. I didn't realize that it would take that much to get the right to access any app or social network I want to? But apparently that's where the so-called paradox of tolerance has led us.
Seems we should have seen this coming. A certain xkcd about infrastructures comes to mind. Oh well. Since true decentralization is possible, it's just a matter of time in the end.