Far-right figures, including Nazi supporters, anti-gay extremists, and white supremacists, are flocking to Threads
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Supporting free speech means allowing people you hate to talk too. Censor a Nazi one day, then the next day it's something your weird friend likes, then the next day it's something you like.
Everyone deserves a platform online, but they have to earn their audience. Censoring them is only going to make more people want to go to other platforms to hear and see what they have to say.
I am not required to respect "free speech" when it comes from a place of fundamental dishonesty. Slander is not protected speech. They are within their rights to removed and complain about whatever non-issue they're up in arms about today and I'm within my rights to ban and ignore them.
They are, notably, NOT within their rights to call for violence and death against LGBTQ+ folks, which many are doing, because that constitutes hate speech, assault, or even inciting a riot, depending on which particular situation you find yourself being a bigot in. All three of these are illegal and are not protected speech.
Tolerance of intolerance is not a paradox, it is a failing of the people who are supposed to be protecting their communities. Tolerance of Nazis and racism are not required by the tenets of the Constitution or by the tenets of democracy and instead actively erode the protections enshrined within each.
In short, Nazi punks, fuck off.
You're right, Slander isn't protected speech. But to prove that it's slander, you need to prove that it damaged you and you need to prove that it was said with malicious intent. You also need to prove that the statement isn't true.
Who's going to take an actual nazi seriously when they have their stupid little protests against jewish people? Not that many...at least not once they find out that they're a nazi.
It doesn't mean you have to give them the platform, though. If they want to create their own Nazi federation that's entirely on them, but you don't have to integrate their content.
If these companies are going to control what's on their platform then they shouldn't get a liability shield.
They're a bookstore censoring the content of the books they have in the store.
If you don't like what someone has to say online you don't have to click on their profiles or follow them or read what they're saying.
That's just common misconception. Free speech is there to protect people from the government, not business. If my anti-racism voice gets suppressed on Threads (assuming I ever make an account there) I'd just move to another platform.
And really, there's no good reason for a well-intended internet community to allow racism expand.
Racism will expand if you censor it.
How many racists have a big audience? And I mean openly, explicitly racist. Not the dog-whistle racism from Fox news.
People have been censored by automated systems for just criticizing racists. Yes, that means that all the people who call them out for being shitty get censored too.
Racism will expand if you censor it.
Literally the exact opposite is true. Deplatforming bigots limits their audience, and limit's their ability to propagandise.
such a slippery slope! supporting free speech means allowing people to talk about how much they want queer people dead, too. tell the people calling for violence against queer people to fuck off, and maybe one day your very own calls for violence might get told to fuck off!
everybody deserves a platform to call for the extermination of people groups, but they have to earn their audience 😏. i think we should do absolutely nothing to stop them, because doing anything just makes them stronger anyways. /s
There's already laws on the books for the things you mentioned, that's not what I was talking about at all.
Free speech has always had limits.
It’s mostly about the government not arresting you for what you say. It doesn’t protect you from the consequences of saying hateful things in a public space. Say something racist in an area largely populated by the race you’re talking about and you’re likely to get kicked, post some right wing misinformation in an online space that is largely left-leaning and you’re likely to have your post deleted. Neither of those things infringe on anyone’s right to free speech because other people also have the right to not want to listen to Nazis or racists or TERFS etc.
True. Personally I think all people named Henry should not have human rights.
The reason you're allowed to say that is because of free speech.
The right to free speech is drawn from a US constitutional amendment, which says the US government can't censor speech, but it has nothing to do with private platforms like this, much less individual responses to Nazi rhetoric. Nobody owes hate speech a free platform.
But these private platforms have a liability shield. If they have a liability shield, they shouldn't be allowed to censor things.
they shouldn't be allowed to censor things
I disagree, and so does US law. Abusive material shouldn't be spread just because it can be.
Illegal shit is already illegal. That's not what I was talking about.
You missed the point, but whatever, you don't get to force private platforms to host content, that's up to the owners.
If they get a liability shield, they shouldn't get to control what happens on their platform.
Quite a sentence. I guess that's where I'm going to stop taking you seriously.
As if you ever took me seriously before.
Disagree. Being absolutist with free speech because we can't trust bad faith actors to honor boundaries is not going to work, because they don't care about their own hypocrisy.
Advocating genocide is a beyond free speech. And that's what nazi ideology, and fascism in general, do.
