Is censorship ok if the person you're censoring is wrong?
Is censorship ok if the person you're censoring is wrong?
Is censorship ok if the person you're censoring is wrong?
What is with these vague, open-ended questions with no effort put in to try to provide any detail or literally anything to engage with?
Now instead of answering your question I have to ask a bunch of questions myself:
Context matters, friend. Please provide some.
No matter what authority, rationale or interpretation cited, it comes to the judgment of the person actually pulling the trigger.
But this is obvious.
LOL, banned after only a day, huh?
No. People often disagree on what is right and wrong. Then the stronger part will just censor the weaker part regardless of who is wrong.
Asuming a Lemmy where censorship is impossible, how would you handle illegal conversations?
Well now we are - discussing a much more specific scenario and not just any scenario where someone is seen as wrong by someone else as in the original question.
Anyway, the owner of any private publishing platform must be allowed to choose what they publish or rules for publishing. If it is “censorship” that publishers cannot be forced by any and all to publish illegal content then yeah, that form of “censorship” is entirely justifiable.
"Wrong" can mean so many things.
Removing misinformation isn't censorship, for example. Similar with removing off-topic threads or comments.
Removing illegal content is censorship if the law is unjust (eg. political dissent restrictions) but not if the law is just (eg. CSAM removal).
Removing immoral content is way dicier, because morality is not fully mapped, and what one person thinks is immoral might seem perfectly moral to another (eg. blasphemy or profane language). I personally would not removed content I found immoral unless it violated community standards, and would consider such removals an overreach but not censorship unless it was selectively targeted at an individual or group.
I guess by my lights to be censorship it has to be:
Removing something objectively incorrect or in the wrong place is not censorship. Removing something justly proscribed is not censorship.
Removing a thread when one viewpoint or group posts about it but not when another posts about it IS censorship.
We're talking about removing stuff at the judgment of the presiding authority.
Rationale is infinitely flexible. It will never be science. So it cannot be relied upon.
So, ideals aside, consider it in that light. Be realistic.
No. The wrong person should be debated openly IMO
If the vast majority of people thought about anything that escaped the material world, maybe. As it is, anyone who understands how stupid, gullible, emotional, irrational, selfish and greedy human beings can be (especially those without any sort of moral code, like irreligious hedonists, for instance) and has the money to flood media with propaganda will inevitably make people believe what he or she wants.
The comments here are very idealistic, but I live in reality. I know there's one wise man out of a hundred, the others focus on practical matters and football. Unless you can just snap your fingers and make people, for instance, not be stupid and intellectually lazy enough to vote for a M/BILLIONAIRE "wise leader of the proletariat" (honestly, every time I type something Trump related I wonder how we've made it this far as a species... then I remember the atomic bomb is not even a century old 🤷), then no, you WILL have to censor some folks. Or, said passively, some folks need to be censored... Sadly, in many countries, the ones who do the mass immoral brainwashing also have the political power to silence and incarcerate those who oppose them.
Maybe the power to censor could be kept out of the hands of individuals. Make it a democratic decision.
Not sure a tyranny of the masses is a good idea, but maybe some community sourced guidelines on what works... But a lot of online communities are already based off of what works for communities, even if enforcement can be flawed.
It's not about right or wrong.
Censorship is okay if the content harms those who hear it. You censor a naked man jacking off in a kindergarden because it will traumatize the children (and possibly more people).
If someone consistently spreads misinformation or disinformation that sounds convincing and will likely harm people (think donald trump and alice weidel) you need to censor them to protect those who are unable to understand the vileness of their agenda.
Equally, you need to educate both children to not go home with the nice man and the public to not listen to fascists and neoliberals.
I think this is where my belief ends up as well. In an ideal world we have great debates and good overcomes evil, but I think most of us sooner or later come to a point where it is hard to care. Protecting the vulnerable seems to be more important than 100% freedom of speech and acts.
Hmm. Maybe.
Not maybe. Just science. Example: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10011534/
"Your mommy has to go away for a while, but she loves you and misses you" is less harmful than "your idiot mom got dragged under a truck and is in critical condition at St. Olga's"
If they're wrong, I think they should be censored.
All the antivaxers, all the flerfs, all the creationists, all the idiot influencers. They shouldn't be allowed a platform to spread misinformation.