[r3trohack3r]

I think you cut to the core of it: genocide.

Governments are entrusted with great power. Enough power to decide an entire class of people no longer deserve to live. Without checks and balances that hold the people we put in government accountable, that power will be abused.

“It should be easy to handle some censorship” is where your point went off the rails.

When you trust your government with the power to control the flow of information, you trust them with the power to hide their own actions from you - including genocide. You trust them to censor people who vocally oppose an unjust war. You trust them to censor people who report on broken checks and balances. You trust them to censor people who question their accumulation of power.

History doesn’t care if you meant well. Our descendants who inherit these political systems won’t care if you meant well. They’ll remember the results of the system you build.

[somethingreen]

You are talking about hypotethicals and I'm talking about reality of today. If you let actual real innocent people die for your principles - you are not virtuous, the future you build and try to protect is not virtuous. It doesn't matter how correct your principles are.

[r3trohack3r]

I’m glad you can say I am only talking hypotheticals. I hope you don’t wait until your government is actively doing a genocide to decide that they shouldn’t have these powers. That’s something you should stop while it’s still a hypothetical.

It is not virtuous to hand the keys of tyranny to your leaders and then wash your hands of the consequences.

It doesn’t matter how correct my principles are. And it doesn’t matter which of the two of us walk away from this thread “feeling virtuous,” “correct,” or “right.” The downstream consequences of my beliefs are mine to bear, and yours are yours.

If my belief system permits the rise of atrocities in this world, history will remember it for that. Not for the principles. Not for the realities I was grappling with. You’ll be judged by future generations no differently.

I don’t disagree there are ongoing atrocities on this planet. I don’t disagree that it’s a moral imperative to try and stop them. But I do disagree with trying to solve these atrocities by eroding the protections that were put in place to prevent our governments from committing those very same atrocities.

[whelp_24]

Do you believe censorship saves lives? Is every country that is committing genocide to be censored (i apologize for my flippancy, unfortunately there's a lot). Are you sure your country isn't one of them? Stand by your principles and you will save lives and you get freedom too. Weaken them and you find the bad guys didn't even have to change the law to take over.

[somethingreen]

Again, it's not a hypothetical. The obvious goal of russian propaganda is to erode western support for Ukraine. Without western support Ukraine cannot fight country 4 times its size with infinite oil money. Armed Forces of Ukraine are the only thing standing between Ukrainan nation and its genocide. Russian propaganda succeeds - genocide completes. It's not that hard.

[salawat]

I have a question.

How big does a group of people acting in concert have to grow before we start slapping on the shackles because they've reached a mass indistinguishable from an act of governance?

Is it purely a factor rrqrqrawreeqEeaerrteutreeerqeeesrErxdrdrwtrsraArRerrrsrssrrerAars numbers? Anything below N is !government? Or is there a factor of impact? Can one person's decision effect so many and so much that we have to put on the brakes in spite of the fact it is just one person?

It's been no end of annoyance for me over the last few years, because I personally have had a fairly difficult time nailing down the sweet spot between collective action, and everyone needs to take a chill pill, cause this ain't right.

[ABCLAW]

>When you trust your government with the power to control the flow of information, you trust them with the power to hide their own actions from you

I think this is as false dilemma - no one's advocating that any institution or system that can regulate the flow of known bad information can operate without any constraints, oversight, etc.

If we assume any exercise of power will ALWAYS be misused under any circumstance, then taken to the extreme we literally shouldn't let people exercise under the notion that they can and will use physical force to coerce people. So we can't run on that assumption; sometimes governments can use power over information to do good things, like prevent the spread of pro-genocide propaganda.

We need to have a far more nuanced discussion about whether or not THIS instance of censorship is more positive or more negative.

[r3trohack3r]

> that can regulate the flow of known bad information

> prevent the spread of pro-genocide propaganda

This is a Motte and Bailey.

Your introduction advocates for: regulating the spread of known bad information.

In your second to last paragraph you substitute it with: prevent the spread of pro-genocide propaganda

I’ll engage with your second point only if you yield that the _only_ form of information that is acceptable for a government to censor is speech that is directly and explicitly calling for genocide.

Otherwise we are talking about the “known bad information” from your first paragraph.

Does “bad” mean false? Or just malicious? Who decides it’s bad? How does it become “known.”

As a citizen, are you allowed to challenge the classification of “bad” or does challenging the classification of “bad” itself count as “bad information?”

What protections are there for keeping inconvenient truths about our government from being classified as “bad information?”

> no one's advocating that any institution or system that can regulate the flow of known bad information can operate without any constraints, oversight, etc.

I’m suggesting that’s exactly what people are advocating for. They may not know it. They may mean well.

[ABCLAW]

>This is a Motte and Bailey.

No it isn't. The motte and bailey tactic is when you advocate for a very broad position, then retreat to something more defensible. I've stated that the broad statement (that all censorship is bad) is false, so as a result we need to have a more nuanced discussion about when it's appropriate to exercise this power and how we can de-fang potential abuses of it. Your position regarding all censorship being bad is your bailey, which quite frankly, I've razed to the ground. Your motte is the position that censorship can be used by a government to manipulate their citizenry, which is true, but significantly more limited in application than the original concept that all censorship is antisocial.

>I’ll engage with your second point only if you yield that the _only_ form of information that is acceptable for a government to censor is speech that is directly and explicitly calling for genocide.

I mean, I wouldn't concede that because I can think of a ton of situations in which banning speech is appropriate. We can start with the classic 'fire in a crowded theater', we can discuss automated scam-driven robocalls, we can look at email spam filter, content moderation on websites, restrictions on the spread of child pornography, etc. What about speech designed to disenfranchise people of their right to vote by lying about where they're supposed to vote? What about financial fraud or any form of censurable misrepresentation?

From a tech perspective, should you be able to DDOS domains without authorization? Does your

>therwise we are talking about the “known bad information” from your first paragraph.

>Does “bad” mean false? Or just malicious? Who decides it’s bad? How does it become “known.”

>As a citizen, are you allowed to challenge the classification of “bad” or does challenging the classification of “bad” itself count as “bad information?”

Great questions. This is where real debates about how legislation and law intersect with censorship occur. Different jurisdictions have different approaches, each with their own strengths and weaknesses. None are perfect, but if you're actually interested in this topic, you can look up review articles looking at comparative law on the subject and I think you'll find a lot of substantive meat to chew.

Even the United States, which values freedom of speech incredibly highly in it's hierarchy of rights have a very large panoply of situations in which speech is restricted.

>I’m suggesting that’s exactly what people are advocating for.

Yes, that's a strawman, which is why people who actually work on the issue don't take the argument seriously. It's the equivalent of someone outside tech saying 'you can't host a website because you can get DDOSed' then being mystified that the internet is still chugging along. The threat is real, but the value of taking action is important, and finding out how to mitigate the threat in real world is where the actual complexity is; identifying a threat everyone knows exists isn't.

Anyways, this is boring. It's the same 101 level discussion every time on this topic and it really gets tiresome.

[r3trohack3r]

The “fire in a crowded theater” is an oft cited example that highlights this point. The phrase is a paraphrasing of a dictum from an opinion in Schenck v. United States, which held that the defendant's speech in opposition to the draft during World War I was not protected by the First Amendment.

Holmes argued, "the words used are used in such circumstances and are of such a nature as to create a clear and present danger that they will bring about the substantive evils that Congress has a right to prevent."

It’s a great example of how governments abuse these powers to silence inconvenient speech.

From child pornography to robocalls, I’d suggest that you don’t need “speech” to be a crime - though it’d be convenient to many pro-censorship arguments if it were.

The production of pornography without consent is illegal and is not speech. The production and possession of child pornography is a crime. Transmission requires both, which are already crimes. Possession with intent to distribute and the distribution of this content are already crimes.

You don’t need a carve out for sending these over TCP/IP conflating it with speech any more than you need a carve out for sending the photos through the U.S. postal service. It was a crime before you sent the photos, still a crime after. Free speech doesn’t wash the crime away and you don’t need to ask us to give up free speech to charge them with a crime.

[ABCLAW]

Your rebuttal doesn't really address the substance of my point, but to put a fine point on it, "It's a crime, therefore it isn't speech" isn't a good argument - if anything it demolishes your own position that speech should never be restricted by government.

The very substance of your original argument is that the power to restrict these things is inherently dangerous, yet you don't seem to apply that standard in current cases where the acts of communication are criminalized.

Accordingly, your original argument falls flat based upon your own argument; the government can criminalize some speech and you don't seem to have an issue with it where it's obviously pro-social to do so.

So, again, work a little harder on refining the original position - the absolutist approach of complete governmental restriction doesn't exist in real life.

If you want to try redefining speech to only include vocal discussion between two people (which very much is not what freedom of speech entails), you'd still fall flat on almost all of the fraud related restrictions mentioned above in my previous post.

Anyways, that's all from me on the topic, the substance of the reply ignoring literally every area of nuance and actual productive conflict is just nauseating. It's like watching some tech guy tell a banker how bonds should work.

[r3trohack3r]

> the government can criminalize some speech and you don't seem to have an issue with it where it's obviously pro-social to do so.

I don’t think I believe this. You’ll need to explain a bit more why I do.

The best I can come up with is “photos are speech, no different than books or pamphlets. “Intellectual property” and pornography are already regulated and there’s no difference between that and other forms of speech. Taking a nude photo without the subject’s consent is speech and forcing someone to have their photo taken nude is speech. If you can’t take nude photographs of children, you don’t have free speech.” I’d have a problem with this argument but could agree with where it’s coming from.

I think what highlights the difference between “speech” and child pornography, for me, is best captured by loliporn and generative AI. I vehemently disagree with the depiction of minors in pornography. But, assuming the artist didn’t use actual child pornography as a reference (including in training the AI), I consider the content generated by those methods to be “speech.” I’d defend your right to produce and distribute it no matter how much I disagree with it. It was never about the “speech” part of the photo.

After reading your response, I’m left feeling like you missed the point of what I said. But maybe I originally missed yours?

I’m sorry for offending you. I assume your profession is law specializing in free speech. It must be exhausting having to engage with the general public on how they feel they feel they should be governed. You’re making me realize I treat my banker the same way, I try to understand (and I have opinions on) the financial instruments I put my savings into before I make the investment.

You must feel like an IT help desk clerk whose constantly burdened by users.

If you’d like me to withdraw from this conversation because I’m not worthy of having it with you, I’m okay with that.

I’ll leave with my general sentiment about your original Motte. I vehemently disagree with pro-genocide propaganda but I’ll defend an American’s right to post and read it.