> I want free speech except I want people I don't like to not have it.
No, actually, koko very loosely defined actual free speech. In a nutshell free speech means that you can say whatever you please so long as you don't venture into what the American courts call "fighting words" (words/images designed to cause harm to another person or words/images that inspire others to cause harm to another person).
Example:
Let's say that I am prejudiced toward piglets (those damn curly tails!). I can express my extreme disdain for the swines to my heart's content. I can talk to people who share my bacon-related woes in the open.
However, I can't encourage people to go and harass or do harm to the hogs. I can't dox Babe and let everyone know the specific pen of residence: that would be encouraging others to harm, harass or make breakfast out of the pig.
> ... and the insulting or "fighting words" those that by their very utterance inflict injury or tend to incite an immediate breach of the peace. — Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire, 1942
Uh, yes it is. If you're going to take the time to tell me that I'm wrong, you might actually also take the time to correct me. Not only was your statement incorrect but it added absolutely nothing to the discussion.
That's the problem with restricting speech. Who defines what is acceptable and not. You can't even say something along the lines of no hate or no harm or no threats as what those terms refer to can change over time and also by locale.
Slang in one place may refer to something rather innocuous and that same term may refer to something entirely different in a different place or dialect. Also some terms can be endearing in one place and quite crude on another.
So, unless one represents an official standard, like a company or a government, censoring content is a bit of a wild goose chase.
Now, that's not to say I want to read crude or hateful content, as I find it a turnoff, but the alternative on balance seems worse. I'd say leave it to the indiv communities and their admins to establish norms rather than a site wide policy.
When I go to reddit or another community, I want civility within the subcommunity I'm interested in, if an alternative community wants to spring up with a free for all approach, so be it.
That's a really insightful post. It's difficult to determine what is acceptable and what is not. I often find myself at odds, particularly around political correctness - where there seems to be a free pass for some people to be prejudiced without accountability.
The question I ask myself is whether or not they should be banned. I usually come to the conclusion that rebuttal is better than banning.
However, i'm also a fan of Karl Popper's don't tolerate the intolerant.
reddit explicitly defined their language around harassment to mean:
> Systematic and/or continued actions to torment or demean someone in a way that would make a reasonable person (1) conclude that reddit is not a safe platform to express their ideas or participate in the conversation, or (2) fear for their safety or the safety of those around them.
Key words to pay attention to here are: systematic, continued, fear. This isn't about being a jerk, or even being a jerk randomly. It's about being a jerk in a targeted way, a lot and over time, in a very intentional way to the degree that it causes fear to speak up or fear for one's self.
Look at the extent to which reddit admins allow hateful speech so long as they don't step outside their boundaries, and you'll understand that they're actually sticking to that definition.
Unfortunately, there's a difference between the "official policy" and the way shadowbans and recent community bans are actually handed out. It leads me to believe they're not sticking to that definition at all, and are using the definition of harassment that includes "saying things I don't like".
Lots of officious nonsense posted by bot accounts, but the entire admin staff over there refuses to answer direct questions, despite them being posted every time one of them shows up in a thread.
Not exactly the mark of people who are acting in good faith. If they were, I'd expect them to be falling over themselves to answer questions...
No, actually, koko very loosely defined actual free speech. In a nutshell free speech means that you can say whatever you please so long as you don't venture into what the American courts call "fighting words" (words/images designed to cause harm to another person or words/images that inspire others to cause harm to another person).
Example:
Let's say that I am prejudiced toward piglets (those damn curly tails!). I can express my extreme disdain for the swines to my heart's content. I can talk to people who share my bacon-related woes in the open.
However, I can't encourage people to go and harass or do harm to the hogs. I can't dox Babe and let everyone know the specific pen of residence: that would be encouraging others to harm, harass or make breakfast out of the pig.
*May not actually apply to pigs.