[smcl]

What basic freedom are these companies trampling? I dislike them as much as the next person, but it's been clear from the start that they operate their little fiefdoms as they see fit and we should be under no illusions that we have no rights there.

If we want to fight for a change to the various laws in various countries, then that is a conversation I would be very willing to have. But let's not pretend that any of these companies have ever offered their services as a place where you can exercise whatever version of free-speech laws your country has.

Interestingly the places that tout "free speech" as a feature tend to descend into pretty grim places full of racism, anti-semitism, conspiracy theories and more besides (hello, 8chan/kun!).

[rosmax_1337]

Have you considered why those places become grim places? Does free speech lead to those ideas? That would be quite a out-there conclusion. Rather, those people can only express themselves on forums like that, they are banned on all the other mediums. If free speech was set as a standard on all mediums, those people would express themselves evenly on facebook, youtube and the chans, rather than being penned into fringe spaces like the chans. I think that society should be more clear about the stance on this, either their speech is banned throughout society, and free speech isn't quite what it used to be, or their speech is tolerated throughout society, and free speech remains.

[mrtranscendence]

I'm not sure I follow you here. Are you saying that we should either ban racist speech outright (let's assume for argument that the speech in question is unquestionably, disgustingly racist), or else permit it in all spaces? Clearly there should be spaces where racism shouldn't be tolerated, but banning it outright seems like a bridge too far, and could make martyrs of those who defy such rules.

[dale_glass]

They become grim because the conflict is asymmetric.

Slinging insults, hate, disinformation, or just posting plain nonsense is easy. Explaining how things work properly takes a lot of effort and is hard. Eg, saying "The moon landings were a hoax" is easy. Explaining why that makes no sense, and how exactly humans did land on the Moon takes a good amount longer.

There's also that the valuable, accomplished people in a community are a scarce resource. What would you prefer the resident rocket scientist to do, provide useful information for the community on something new going on, or try to reason with the newly arrived conspiracy theorist?

[JoshuaDavid]

If your space is the only one that doesn't have regular witch hunts, you're going to end up with a lot of witches.

[fallingknife]

Reddit and Twitter very much touted free speech 10 years ago and didn't have this issue (unless you want looking for it). And Google and FB effectively allowed whatever but didn't talk about it, until 2015 or so.

1. Tout free speech to great success and become a dominant platform

2. Get advertiser and political blowback

3. Ban unpopular speech

4. Now "free speech" platforms only have unpopular content

As a tangent, pre 2010, the best argument I had with conspiracy nuts was "if all this shit you're saying is true, then why is the government / corporations not trying to silence you, like you say they are doing to all the people involved." Can't use that anymore.

[smcl]

Did that strategy ever work with conspiracy nuts? In my experience that argument was always met with a response that wove an even more elaborate conspiracy. Like the government/corporations/illuminati deliberately allow just enough people to talk about it unless they get too close, or something similar.

Unfortunately I think this strategy is doomed, it relies on people who have rejected reality to use basic common sense. I don't even know if there is a good strategy to calm a conspiracy nut, thankfully I don't really talk to such people.

[fallingknife]

You're not arguing with them, but with everyone else in the room. Now the conspiracy nut would just say "but they do try to silence us" and he would be right.

[tonguez]

"What basic freedom are these companies trampling?"

Freedom of speech

[smcl]

Honestly this reminds me of a friend who sincerely answered "Because America" when I asked a related question. It didn't really mean anything and it was a naive misunderstanding the situation. In this case you misunderstand your relationship with these companies. Despite what you think about whatever law or amendment ...

    You do not have a right of free speech on Google's platforms.

Yeah it sucks, you could talk about how you think Google are awful and they could kick you off. But also someone could be inciting an uprising against a minority and they can also be kicked off. It all kinda depends on the Terms of Service you agree on with Google. It's complex and annoying and it comes up all the time and has been done to death.

But nonetheless in this case it seems they removed someone who _didn't_ violate TOS, which bodes rather badly for the all of us because it means we are subject to the whims of whoever possesses the banhammer at any given time.

And with that I'm out. I cannot deal with this thread any more.