[zmb_]

> I personally respect freedom of speech, except hate.

The problem is that as soon as you draw such a line, you need to appoint a censor to determine what qualifies as "hate". As Christopher Hitchens asked: "To whom would you want to delegate the task to decide for you what you could read? To relieve you of the responsibility of hearing what you might have to hear?"

Typically this job falls to the public prosecutors. Who will make mistakes, misapply and pervert the laws. Sometimes with good intentions, sometimes with malice.

It is not just an abstract argument, it has very real consequences. Here in Finland we had a case [1] where an MP (now MEP) was convicted of hate speech for making a point about freedom of speech by asking a question along the lines of: 'Why is it ok to write that Finns might be culturally and genetically predisposed to get drunk and kill people, but not ok to write that Somalis might be culturally and genetically predisposed to rob people and live on welfare?'

These types of laws have very real chilling effects on public discourse. People are unwilling to engage in certain topics, which should be discussed, due to the fear of being prosecuted. In democracies trying to suppress or censor an idea or argument will just end up elevating them. In this case, the party to which the convicted MP belongs ended up becoming the second largest party and are now in the government. They no longer have to argue their case, they can simply implement it (and their immigration program was written by the MP in question).

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jussi_Halla-aho#Criminal_charg...

[arrrg]

Counterpoint: Censorship is awesome. It creates and shapes places that are just great and pleasant all around. Being an excellent censor is a great ability and there are sadly way too few out there who can give a clear voice (not in the sense of being one voice, necessarily, though that can also be great!) to something and be really excellently opinionated about their censorship.

I want more great censorship, not less. If it’s done by people and organisations, at least. Because that’s what we are talking about here, right? Reddit, not governments?

Censors are just editors and that job is not some inscrutable thing. It can be done and it can be done excellently.

I mean, to me this only gets tricky when we are talking about basic infrastructure, i.e. should a paper mill be allowed to refuse to sell their paper to Neo Nazis because of ideological reasons? Should a web hoster be allowed to refuse to sell to Neo Nazis?

But Reddit? That’s easy and I don’t really get what the fuss is about. Nothing would be lost at all if the admins were much, much, much more ban happy and much more pro-censorship. They should be, 100%.

[growupkids]

Perhaps I'm missing something. How would you know if someone is an excellent censor (I.e. They only censor "bad" speech, and not "good" speech) if then intent is to shield you from the "bad" speech. Wouldn't you then not know what they censored?

Specifically, it seems to me that if you're shielded from seeing that they censored, then they could also be censoring "good" speech too. So the only way it seems you could ensure they weren't do this poorly or deliberately would be to allow everyone access to what they've censored. Which inversely seems to defeat the purpose of having a good censor. Now essentially nothing in censored.

Again, perhaps I'm missing something but if I'm not then I don't understand how you resolve this conundrum.

Edit: Unless you're referring to ex post facto censorship, where everyone sees the "bad" speech, and the speaker is banned for violating "community standards" To pre-emptively ban future speech. But this too still allows "bad" speech, and I suppose you also have the problem of deleting the bad speech. If it's gone, then what substantiates the ban/censorship? Because again, what if the action was either done in error, or maliciously to ban "good" but unpopular speech/speakers how would you know?

[arrrg]

I don’t. I just accept that sometimes I just cannot know the absolute truth and that’s that.

But I do have the ability to trust people and I know when I enjoy something.

So, this all might sound very abstract, but I do know that I like the censors (they call themselves editors) working for certain newspapers I like. I trust them to make good decisions, partly just because I don’t have time to make those decisions myself.

And that’s obviously not perfect – but this whole nerd dream of provable correctness and absolute, guaranteed access to the truth all the time … it’s all unachievable bullshit anyway. Sometime you just don’t know. Sometimes you just have to live with that. I live with it and I like it.

[camelite]

> Sometime you just don’t know. Sometimes you just have to live with that. I live with it and I like it.

Honestly, this comes across as "He loved Big Brother"-level creepy.

[arrrg]

Big brother?

Do you have some sort of trust issues? I mean, sometimes I’m willing to trust other people, that’s all. I don’t have to believe that everyone is evil and out to get me. So when I read a newspaper I like I have a general trust that the editors (censors) have done their job … because what else can I do? What else can you do?

I don’t have the time to sit around 24 hours by the newswire … and even then, the people writing that and reporting that … how do I know I can trust those absolutely? I can’t. That’s all.

We humans are forever doomed to not know the truth always all the time. And no one is an island and sometimes you just have to trust other people. And that’s healthy and that’s ok.

[camelite]

Basically, there are better sources to place your trust in than journalists. Journalists, in general, really suck.

[camelite]

> Counterpoint: Censorship is awesome.

Well it's crucial that the censors are people who like you. If they didn't like you, you probably wouldn't be such a fan of censorship. That is to say, the only reason you're in favour of censorship on reddit is that you're reasonably that the censors will be people like you, which really is no more than sophisticated tribalism.

[arrrg]

Hm … well I don’t like the censors at (insert certain newspaper I dislike here). But I don’t argue that they shouldn’t censor (edit their newspaper), I argue that they shouldn’t lie and write so much bullshit.

If I didn’t like the censors at Reddit I would do the same thing. I think that’s normal and healthy.

[agumonkey]

It's interesting. Instead of censorships I'm fond of the idea (though experiment so far) of shaping the place with costs and plateaus. Make sensitive things possible but with a bit of effort, so only people needing and meaning it will go the distance. The other will `naturally` fall back to their comfort zone.

reddit does that actually, until you're a well known user, you cannot submit more than a few per minute, after that delays kick in, if it really was something you wanted to share, you'll come back. No censor involved.

That's just an idea, but you get the point.

[JohnBooty]

   > The problem is that as soon as you draw such a line

The line needs to be drawn, though. As the saying goes, "Your freedoms end where my freedoms begin."

At some point, hate speech most definitely infringes upon the reader's rights. The canonical example is yelling "FIRE! FIRE!" in a crowded movie theater and causing a stampede; your right to free speech doesn't trump everybody else's right to be safe.

[dredmorbius]

I'd very strongly suggest you read the circumstances of * Schenck v. United States. While I also find the issue of fraudulently harmful speech a reasonable bar, the case itself concerned something rather different.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schenck_v._United_States

[A] United States Supreme Court decision concerning enforcement of the Espionage Act of 1917 during World War I. A unanimous Supreme Court, in a famous opinion by Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., concluded that defendants who distributed leaflets to draft-age men, urging resistance to induction, could be convicted of an attempt to obstruct the draft, a criminal offense.