I don't know, and in the airless vacuum of a message board debate, that's a good question to noodle about. But in the case of Gab, it's not hard to make the call. Maybe it's more difficult in the case of "Truth" or Parler or MeWe or whatever, but we can all be pretty clear on the intolerance baked into the site on which the Tree of Life shooting was planned and cheerled. Gab is a site where even the person who posts inspirational cat and landscape photos turns out, if you scroll down far enough, to be an overt white supremacist.
The laws shouldn't be different for sites like Gab than they are for sites like Twitter. But in communities based on free association, it's praiseworthy not to associate with Gab.
This whole thing about who draws the lines as to what's acceptable speech is like saying "who decides what a legitimate political party is?" It's a good question. But regardless of the answer to it, we can all agree that the American Nazi Party is not a legitimate political party (or, if it is, we need to change our definition of "legitimacy").
I think philosophers have done an amazing job [1] already but in the end each individual and community will have to decide for themselves; there's really no alternative.
This kind of thinking requires you to absolutely set aside the human ability to make "reasonable" judgments. That free speech is so unassailable that nobody is justified in declaring an expression or utterance to be dangerous. Our justice system is built on setting standards of proof like "reasonable doubt" with the implicit expectation that humans can, in fact, make reasonable judgments and those judgments can be of what is and isn't within their legally protected freedom.
As a reasonable person, I think that overt racism, opposition to public health measures, attacks on voting and democracy and unwillingness to accept responsibility for damage to the environment we all share are simply not reasonable points of view. I think the consensus for what is unreasonable is actually quite a bit narrower than that (no one has ever been deplatformed for climate denial). A lot of pro-Trump forums have devolved into exhortations to violence that lead to a deadly insurrection. No digital platform out there wants to be responsible for something like that and it's not just because of politics.
By all measures you are characterizing something like a 4chan. Why do we put up with 4chan? I suppose they are hilarious that’s why.
Look, the alt-right has a right to spew their bullshit on the internet. I really believe this, and it’s important we protect this right. Now, if we find a case where they coordinated something like the Jan 6 capitol riots, then we also expect places like Gab and Truth to cooperate with authorities.
I’m not sure what the big deal is here. I’m never going there, and I actually never go to 4chan either. If we come to a situation where sites like these don’t cooperate with the law, we’ll handle that. But, give them a chance to exist at least.
Incoming pretentiousness:
I know human beings a little bit. They are bored, and love gossip, and shit talking, and lamenting about something. Every subgroup, subculture, this kind of thing is a cheap escape that many many people enjoy. My own mother (getting super anecdotal now) can’t stop gossiping, her friends can’t, they looove to talk shit about this and that and who.
The alt-right, like the woke-left, love this fight, like a terrible couple that has great sex. And that’s all it is mostly, a bunch of shit talkers.
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The vigilance necessary is to see that it doesn’t spill into the streets. I know what I’m advocating for is the precursor to such an event, but I really hope it’s just plain old human nature at work here. A bunch of bored assholes, on both sides, picking on each other in a digital mma fight. Neither can exist without the other. The woke-left needs this Truth app to exist.
>As a reasonable person, I think that overt racism, opposition to public health measures, attacks on voting and democracy and unwillingness to accept responsibility for damage to the environment we all share are simply not reasonable points of view.
That's a reasonable position to take, IMHO.
However, that position is irrelevant to the law in the US. In the US, the government (except in very narrow circumstances[0]) may not censor or restrict speech.
However, private actors are not restricted from censoring or restricting speech on their private property.
That's how the law in the US works. If someone doesn't like it, they can try to get the law changed. For those who advocate that, good luck -- you're gonna need it.
Actually there are a lot of restrictions and requirements when it comes to speech on private property. For example telecommunication services are treated as common carriers and must allow speech to transit even if they disagree with it. It is clear that big tech platforms behave more like utilities and should be regulated like common carriers. In this case with an open source project restricting use via its license, maybe that’s not applicable. But I would argue that F-droid, as a platform with network effects, should be subject to the same requirement to not censor.
>It is clear that big tech platforms behave more like utilities and should be regulated like common carriers.
The operative term there is "should." I don't agree (and not for the reasons you probably think), but if you think that's how it should be, I respect that.
But that's not the law here in the US. As I said, [i]f someone doesn't like it, they can try to get the law changed. For those who advocate that, good luck -- you're gonna need it.
Edit: Clarified my thoughts about current law and the likelihood of changing it.
For one, exhortations to violence are an explicit exception to free speech. And secondly the amendment only prevents laws being passed to prevent speech. Not private businesses from disallowing content.
> As a reasonable person, I think that overt racism, opposition to public health measures, attacks on voting and democracy and unwillingness to accept responsibility for damage to the environment we all share are simply not reasonable points of view.
One of these things is extraordinarily not like the others.
You don’t think it’s reason to have debate about public health measures.
That is definitely something I strongly disagree with. Now look, I’m double mRNA vaccinated against COVID19, and I gently advocate for others to do so.
Do I think governments should mandate COVID19 vaccination? Absolutely not, and there’s a massive amount of health debate to back up my, what I consider, reasonable position.
I’m Australian, so found this podcast between Canadian psychologist Jordan B. Peterson and former Australian Deputy Prime Minister from 1999 to 2005 John Anderson, intellectual heavyweights railing against mandatory vaccination and lockdowns particularly relevant
At the beginning of the pandemic the Spanish authorities literally said that masks not only were not useful but they could be harmful because they gave a false safety feeling.
Since then it has been proved over and over again that masks, even when misused, stop the spreading of the virus.
So I absolutely agree with you. We should be able to question them.
The odds are that mandating covid vaccination starting in the first month of availability would have saved somewhere between thousands and hundreds of thousands of lives including vulnerable individuals who died despite vaccination.
I don't agree that you shouldn't be able to have that conversation but I don't think its a hard argument that people ought to have been forced to vaccinate. People would have freaked out and still be bitching today but they would be alive.
I think you’re deeply misunderstanding something here.
Nothing good can ultimately come from that sort of scenario.
What it directly results in is a massive mistrust of government authority.
Make the vaccine available at no cost to the individual, and it’s effectiveness data available for scrutiny. That’s the only justifiable course in my opinion.
This more forceful approach has considerable long term negative consequences on trust in government authority that will most certainly have arse-biting consequences for those who wield this power.
They are free. And the data is published. Been that way since the start. You're not accounting for the relentless disinformation being spread. That's the whole point of this thread.
My wife is vulnerable despite vaccination. I would venture to guess most people have a relationship with someone who is thus. I would happily sacrifice your freedom for her life. Given a completely free choice I would venture to guess we would ultimately have 60% of those over 18 and 35% under 18 by preference.
If 74% are over 18 the most we could reasonably hope for is around 53% of the population vaccinated despite the data being overwhelmingly in favor of vaccination. If we make it challenging to work or go to school we might hope for 80-90% ultimately based on only 9% being dead set against vaccination no matter what according to pew.
In such an environment my family will be vastly safer. When your health choices aren't a reasoned choice but an expression of political fealty I give it less weight.
No I'm not saying that. Obviously not all policies are above reproach but you know full well that a lot of opposition is based purely on disinformation. "Government mandate of COVID-19" is hopefully a typo but vaccine mandates for government employees is well within their right as are the myriad private mandates. The efficacy and safety of the various approved vaccines are well studied and the benefits to everyone far outweigh the dangers. Anyone spreading deliberately incorrect information like covid is fake or vaccines cause autism (remember that one?) are simply not reasonable.
And Jordan Peterson is a professional snowflake who makes fragile white males feel good about themselves. He is supposedly trained in psychology and has no idea what he's talking about when it comes to epidemiology but is unencumbered by his lack of expertise due to his monumental ego.
I’m arguing that forcible mandates (get it or lose your job) is a preposterous method to convince an already doubting person. Note, I’m not the person that needs convincing, I’ve already had two doses and am now actively asking when I can have a third.
The goal isn't to convince. It's to keep your workers safe. My company nearly revolted to get the CEO to put a mandate in place because the vast majority didn't want to be in an office with unvaccinated people.
The laws shouldn't be different for sites like Gab than they are for sites like Twitter. But in communities based on free association, it's praiseworthy not to associate with Gab.
This whole thing about who draws the lines as to what's acceptable speech is like saying "who decides what a legitimate political party is?" It's a good question. But regardless of the answer to it, we can all agree that the American Nazi Party is not a legitimate political party (or, if it is, we need to change our definition of "legitimacy").