After everything that happened in 2015-2016, do y'all * still * not understand why I don't want Nazis censored for their beliefs?
@p But in all seriousness, it goes like this:
> Bans Nazis
Hey aren't Nazis alt-right! We should ban them too.
> Bans alt right users
Hey, isn't Trump alt-right! We should ban anyone supporting him too.
> Bans Trump supporters
Hey, aren't Trump supporters Republicans? We should ban Republicans too.
> Bans Republicans
Hey, aren't white people Republicans? We should ban white people too.
> Bans white people
etc.
Censorship is a slippery slope.
🇳🇱
While I rarely ever support censorship it is good to note censorship has historically "went the other way" as well. We have numerous examples of laws that create censorship being later repealed and the censorship disapears.
There is something to learn from these incidents so we can strive towards less censorship in the future.
Delete and redraft considered harmful.
Levenshtein distance of first post to second post: 5. Length of post: 356. Change: 1.4%. diff after running through `tr ' ' '\n'`:
+++ /tmp/a 2020-05-13 05:35:03.396977329 -0700
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censorship
has
historically
-been
"went
the
other
Estimated semantic difference: 0%. It was a typo.
Nevertheless, censors do not often change their minds, and we were talking about services on the internet, anyway.
Things never get less restrictive unless the people pushing for restrictions go away.
You seemed to entirely miss the point. I made no claims as to how often it happens. though I did point out your claim of it "never" happening is obviously false, but that isnt the point.
The point is we have countless examples of laws that were used to censor and later repealed explicitly because of their abuse as a tool to censor. We should not take the absolutist view that it never happens because in doing so people become less educated on when it does happen and how we can learn from it to ensure it happens again.
Your last statement is of course a somewhat useful modification to your earlier assertion though. You added to the "things never get less restrictive" with a new clause "unless the people pushing for restrictions go away".. while I'd say that is common sense, the law will follow what the people want the law to be, it does hint at a very high level how and why we might otherwise fight to reverse censorship. It mostly boils down to changing the minds of some group of people. Not always the ones pushing for it though, but still, it boils down to censorship will always reflect the level of censorship people push for. so we reverse it by changing the minds of the people (and have at times in the past).
But to me most of that response is just not saying anything useful, we have to look at how and why those minds were changed WRT past laws if we want to have a similar effect.
This all seems rather clueless of what was said and just based on your own assumptions...
> Unintentional censorship was not being discussed.
You're right it wasnt, I didnt mention anything about the censorship being unintentional. I'm talking about laws or practices that were very intentionally designed to create censorship that were later revoked.
Hays code would be a prime example of this. It was intentionally designed as a tool of censorship, later revoked. There are countless other examples.
You also seem to assume that I am somehow ok with censorship laws on the notion that we can repeal them later, again a faulty assumption. I'm all for someone opposing a censorship law before it gets passed, obviously this is more efficient than trying to correct it after the fact. but such absolutist thinking, as you tend to engage in, isnt particularly helpful in a world where we are already battling with censorship in many countries. Having insight into how and why past censorship has been abolished is crucial to fixing things. However if we were to take what you said at face value then it would be hopeless, despite history being against you in that regard (in many ways the USA is less censored today than it was in the past).
> This all seems rather clueless of what was said and just based on your own assumptions...
I don't know, I see you jumping in with stuff that wasn't under discussion.
> Hays code would be a prime example of this.
That was not a law and it was not a standard created by a company for its own use, it was an industry-wide standard and it has not been "revoked", merely revised, replaced, etc. (Posters advertising a film still may not have a gun pointing directly at the camera, for instance.)
> You also seem to assume that I am somehow ok with censorship laws on the notion that we can repeal them later
No, and given that the paragraph following looks like a lengthy rebuttal of arguments I haven't made (please reread what I wrote if you are confused), I have nothing to say about it.
I'm not interested in trying to reform it, I don't know why you're focusing on arguing that I'm dumb and wrong rather than trying to make your case, and I don't care. I don't wanna engage in anything like this. If you have a course of action to propose, propose it. Making vague references to what you think is the correct thing to do and spending all your time REEEEing that I don't understand anything is fine, you're free to do that, but I am not going to waste time that I could be spending on building the things that I think need to be built.
So the TL;DR of that: you are convinced that you know de way, propose de way. If "de way" cannot be defined in terms other than "YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND ANYTHING", then I don't think you have a proposal and you just wanna have a slap-fight, and I don't care.
Its tiring that I need to spend most of my time in any discussion with you correcting invalid assumption you make about what is said...
for starters
> I don't know, I see you jumping in with stuff that wasn't under discussion.
Yes, that's how conversation works, people bring new ideas into a conversation that are either discussed or passed up
> That was not a law and it was not a standard created by a company for its own use
I specifically said "I'm talking about laws or practices". Standards set across an entire industry and enforced nearly universally among that industry is relevant.
If you want actual laws there are countless number of those as well, the sedition act of 1918 forbade certain language that was "disloyal, profane, scurrilous, or abusive language", it was repealed in 1920
> I don't know why you're focusing on arguing that I'm dumb
I never once said you were dumb.
Again please stop putting words in other peoples mouth and then arguing against something that was never said, it is tiring
> rather than trying to make your case
I made my case in the first post. My case was that we should stop trying to sell the narrative that censorship only goes one way and instead focus on trying to understand the cases where censorship was recinded so we can better apply that to the cases we have to deal with today.
My point was that the absolutist thinking that you are promoting when talking about this subject is ultimately harmful to the purpose of decreasing censorship, as absolutist one-sided thinking tends to be, and we must look past it if we are to have a positive impact on our mutual goal of reducing censorship.
The delete and redraft isnt for your sake.
You can usually assume such changes are minor, if you already read it, you can assume you dont need to read it (when I redraft). If I add new information, rather than corrections to wording, it would have been as a seperate post.
> your claim of it "never" happening is obviously false
> we have countless examples of laws that were used to censor and later repealed explicitly because of their abuse as a tool to censor.
Unintentional censorship was not being discussed. A non sequitur, but it has now been said three times (I'm going to count Delete-and-Redraft as distinct posts, because that's how it's implemented and that's how the UI presents it, and Mastodongles can start supporting 'Update' as an activity type if they want to stop fucking this up so badly) with no examples cited.
> the law will follow what the people want the law to be
Citation needed.
> we have to look at how and why those minds were changed WRT past laws if we want to have a similar effect.
I think you make some unwarranted assumptions about my goals for the future and my methods for achieving those goals, man.
You go ahead and try to win those hearts and minds (though you might want to try a little more fuzziness when parsing natural language). PRISM happened because a promise from the government does not mean jack shit, and everyone saying "Well, let's fix the law so they can't do that!" has clearly forgotten that the previous administration had done the same thing, and the one before that, and the one before that, and every single time there was an outcry and every single time they promised not to sidestep the law or abuse power. Trusting power-hungry psychopaths to color inside the lines was never part of the plan, I'm way past caring what any of them promise or what the law says they can do. You don't make them promise to stop, you make it impossible for them to continue.
Tu fui ego eris, dude, I'll see you when you make it to this side of the river.