Limits on freedom of speech

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Limits on free speech

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Drecon
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Re: Limits on freedom of speech

Postby Drecon » 02 Jun 2016, 23:27

I think that protecting people from things like racism and other kinds of discrimination is essential to a well functioning society. You want to protect people from hate and calls to action against other people, then it's neccessary to limit the free speech of people.
Technically, even openly planning a terrorist attack would be covered by a blanket statement about free speech.

I don't think you can limit people's thoughts or private conversations, but publishings and open declarations of intent are actios and can therefore be observed and acted upon.
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Re: Limits on freedom of speech

Postby korvys » 03 Jun 2016, 03:08

I remember reading something along these lines:
Society/Civilisation is agreeing to surrender some freedoms in exchange for protection of the rest.

It kinda struck a chord with me, though I've not really taken the time to really think it through. It seems pretty on to money. We put laws in place, restricting our right to do things, on the basis that those laws protect a greater good.

I don't really think speech should be any different. Speech can cause harm. If we can restrict certain speech, restricting freedom, to protect a greater freedom, I don't see that as a problem. There are plenty of problems with just how much restriction would gain how much protection, and the practical realities of it, but I don't object in theory.
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Re: Limits on freedom of speech

Postby AdmiralMemo » 03 Jun 2016, 06:51

Benjamin Franklin wrote:Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.
Just something to consider. I guess it depends on how you define "essential" though.
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Re: Limits on freedom of speech

Postby Elomin Sha » 03 Jun 2016, 07:07

Not really free speech but two words: Patriot Act.
People loved it when it was first used but over the years people realised how over reaching it was.
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Re: Limits on freedom of speech

Postby CamelKnackRambleHort » 03 Jun 2016, 08:42

AdmiralMemo wrote:
Benjamin Franklin wrote:Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.
Just something to consider. I guess it depends on how you define "essential" though.

I like how you actually used the quote tags for Benjamin Franklin.

Darkflame in particular hit on my personal stance on this issue and my reasons as well. Sometimes freedoms or rights are in direct conflict with one another. The right to say whatever you damn well please often butts up against the right to live life without being abused because you happened to be born different or believe different things. If I had to categorize both of these vague concepts under names I would call them "Freedom of Speech" and "Pursuit of Happiness."

Compromising the vital liberty of the ability to pursue happiness for a little bit of extra protection to say whatever you want is, in my opinion, the more correct application of the Ben Franklin quote because the pursuit of happiness is a far more important liberty.
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Re: Limits on freedom of speech

Postby AdmiralMemo » 03 Jun 2016, 16:57

Yeah. As mentioned, perhaps that isn't an "essential" Liberty. But that can be debated into the ground by all sorts of people.
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Re: Limits on freedom of speech

Postby Elaro » 03 Jun 2016, 18:28

The "essential" part of freedom of speech is the freedom to critique.

Freedom to critique the government, freedom to critique an individual, etc. The thing is that critique is not harassment. A critique may be well or ill-founded, but at least it tries to point out or correct flaws in somebody or something, and that pushes for that thing or person to improve. That's why it's useful to society.
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Re: Limits on freedom of speech

Postby King Kool » 20 Jul 2016, 19:56

Wow, it's been two months since this came around, huh?

I haven't really had time to write up a huge breakdown like I wanted to, but something happened recently that I want to post as a example.

Odious goblin-man Milo Yiannopoulos was banned from Twitter again, apparently because of disseminating faked tweets by actress and buster of ghosts Leslie Jones that made her look bad.

The question "should he be banned from Twitter" is different from "is this some sort of prosecutable offense," or "is this defamatory?" Because if it's not, it is protected by the First Amendment, full stop.

Now, Twitter can make whatever rules it wants. If it says that promoting faked tweets that you KNOW to be fake to make someone look bad is a bannable offense, they can do that, but good luck proving that. In fact, the fact that it's protected speech doesn't mean that it can't be taken off of Twitter. A website is private property, and they can run it however they want.

But... are people making fake tweets about Donald Trump going to get the same treatment? Before you draw some material difference between Trump and Mrs. Jones, please think on why one should have more or less constitutional protection than the other.

Removing things from a website should really be a last resort, unless it's a policy that will be followed rigorously. Hopefully, the Internet can be strong enough that we can find that the tweets are fake. We don't need to shut Milo up. We just need to remember and express to others that he's the sort of guy who would purposefully spread falsified tweets... to hurt someone he doesn't even know, or maybe for the sheer fun of it.

Remember: nobody needs free speech rights to protect admirable speech by people we like. It's designed to protect despised speech by people we hate. Yiannopoulos deserves contempt for monetizing bigotry, and his fans are loathsome, but his speech is protected.


So... what sort of speech should be banned from Twitter, and possibly made actually illegal? You have to think of the kind of speech that has the least expressive value and has the greatest ability to harm. Slander and that is up there, but those are already illegal.

I propose the most loathsome thing you can do with your Twitter account... is the dox. For this purpose, the dox is "releasing someone's personal information, their real name, their address, phone number, out into the Internet without that person's consent." For now, let's leave the intent out of it. Also, we're not going with Rebecca Watson's troublesome definition, which included releasing the email addresses of people who write her nasty letters. That's on a far smaller level, to the point where calling it a "dox" trivializes real doxxes. I wish we had a better word for that.

At the height of the Trayvon Martin scandal, someone doxxed George Zimmerman, the man who, by his own admission, took Martin's life. It got retweeted by a lot of people, including Spike Lee, because apparently he wanted to make sure Bamboozled wasn't the worst thing he ever did. It turned out that the address wasn't even actually George Zimmerman's; it was some very unfortunate and entirely innocent people.

Now, let's say it really was Zimmerman's house. What good does is do to publicize his address? So we can send him disapproving letters ? No, doxxes are used to intimidate and scare people, to bring crowds of people with far more emotion than sense storming around someone's home, to cause them stress and fear and whatever else.

Maybe you'd approve of that happening to Zimmerman. Surely, he deserves to drown in alligator shit. But that's not how we're supposed to do things in America. If someone shot George Zimmerman dead in an act of retribution, that would STILL be wrong. And if he was killed by someone who got his address through a dox, anyone who perpetrated the dox would be partially responsible for disseminating it. In a society, there is no such thing as justice dispensed by an individual. There is only revenge.

You could say, "Well, that information is out there anyway. We have no responsibility to whatever people chose to do with that information. Now please hang on as I hand out these swords to a crowd of nearsighted children. What they do with them is their business."

As you can see, that cuts none of my mustard. Anyone who would use their freedom of speech that casually and wash their hands of the responsibility doesn't deserve it... but they will still have it.

The dox really does contribute absolutely nothing to civilized society. If you've ever thought about looking up where someone lives... seriously, what got you in such a lather that you thought, "I'm going to go to this place's house and stomp on all the flowerbeds?" That's not healthy or constructive.

So, my Twitter rules would start with the highest crime at the top. If you make a Tweet that is a dox, as defined above, you get your account shut down. To determine what is a dox and what isn't, the "report" function could have a setting that says, "This is a dox!" and once someone (or possibly many, to avoid abuse) reports it, the tweet vanishes from all public view to stop its spreading, and the tweeter is temporarily suspended, along with anyone who retweeted it.

Then, a REAL LIFE PERSON who works for Twitter, and is in possession of good sense and a desire to follow the rules, investigates it and sees if it's a dox. If it is, the doxxer loses their account and can never be on Twitter again. The retweeters and other spreaders get a very stern message, telling them never to do it again, and if they proliferate a dox again, they will be banned as if they were the doxxer themselves.

If it turns out it AIN'T a dox, the person who reported it as a dox loses their report function for a great length of time, maybe six months. If they abuse it again, they get double the time without a report function. Maybe doing it too many times would result in a ban.

The details could be worked out a little, and it would have to be phrased very carefully to avoid being overturned as unconstitutional, but it's not impossible to make limits to the 1st Amendment and pass an anti-doxxing law. It's just really really difficult. And it shouldn't be easy to take away the rights in the Constitution. They are important, even as people sneer at them without even understanding them.

They just passed the "revenge porn" ban somewhere, didn't they? We'll see how enforceable that is, and if it stands to constitutional muster, but surely that's another act we can agree could stand to be specifically non-protected speech. The internet has plenty of pictures of naked people without anyone being there against their will.

On that rock, the rock of stopping people from doxxing.. that would be where I would start shaving the barest edge off the 1st Amendment. The trade for losing valueless speech and gaining some safety would be an appropriate trade.

I hope. I'm sure somewhere along the way, it would get fucked up. Maybe I've already fucked it up. I don't know. But at least I recognize how important those rights are, unlike some people... who are running for President.

https://popehat.com/2016/07/20/lawsplainer-are-milos-faked-tweets-defamatory/
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Re: Limits on freedom of speech

Postby korvys » 20 Jul 2016, 21:20

I'll just point out that this banning was for targeted harassment, which is to say, inciting his followers to harass Leslie Jones, of which those fake tweets were only some of the incitement, and Milo has been suspended multiple times in the past for this. This is a matter of behaviour, rather than a specific instance of a tweet breaking a rule.

I'm totally ok with this, and in fact wish more companies would follow suit. Harassers, abusers, etc, are really good at skirting the rules, at saying things that, out of context, could plausibly mean something else. It's like that Trump Star of David thing. Yes, sheriffs use a 6 pointed start, but no one actually believes that's what that was give the context of the image. There's a point where you just have to say no, no one believes you are constantly saying thing that just happen to have a double meaning, one of which is very offensive, and it's just a coincidence, every single time.

It's exactly the same as if someone on these forums or in the twitch chat called someone else a 'bundle of sticks'. Sure, you didn't technically use a slur. But we know what you mean. Get the fuck out.

I do not believe for a second that Milo didn't know what he was doing. I am very happy to see Twitter enforce the spirit of the rules, rather than the letter, though I'm disappointed it took this long, and a person this high-profile for that to happen. He has done the same thing many times before.

I know companies are eager to avoid having to make judgements, because that would open them up to accusations of bias, but at a certain point you have to have a human make the call and say "we no longer believe you are making honest mistakes when you break the rules". Because that's not something a word filter can spot, and that's not thing a helpdesk person can judge based on seeing an isolated reported tweet.
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Re: Limits on freedom of speech

Postby Arclight_Dynamo » 20 Jul 2016, 22:20

Also... to be clear... this has literally nothing to do with freedom of speech. If no government is involved, no constitutional right is infringed.

Now, if this Milo person had been charged with a crime, or if a government had somehow censored him, there could be a discussion about freedom of speech. But that's not the case.

But let's assume for a moment that he was charged with something. Is this protected speech? Maybe not. There are a lot of laws that ban certain speech, which don't run afoul of the first amendment. Criminal harassment, for example.

Does this rise to the level of criminal harassment? I don't know enough about what was said to say - but it's at least a possibility.

Even in the US, free speech is not unlimited.
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Re: Limits on freedom of speech

Postby AdmiralMemo » 20 Jul 2016, 23:17

King Kool wrote:So, my Twitter rules would start with the highest crime at the top. If you make a Tweet that is a dox, as defined above, you get your account shut down. To determine what is a dox and what isn't, the "report" function could have a setting that says, "This is a dox!" and once someone (or possibly many, to avoid abuse) reports it, the tweet vanishes from all public view to stop its spreading, and the tweeter is temporarily suspended, along with anyone who retweeted it.

Then, a REAL LIFE PERSON who works for Twitter, and is in possession of good sense and a desire to follow the rules, investigates it and sees if it's a dox. If it is, the doxxer loses their account and can never be on Twitter again. The retweeters and other spreaders get a very stern message, telling them never to do it again, and if they proliferate a dox again, they will be banned as if they were the doxxer themselves.

If it turns out it AIN'T a dox, the person who reported it as a dox loses their report function for a great length of time, maybe six months. If they abuse it again, they get double the time without a report function. Maybe doing it too many times would result in a ban.
This... won't work. It's good in principle, but has so many ways to be abused.

First: Person finds someone they would like to silence for a while. Person creates throw-away email address, then uses it to create throw-away Twitter account. Person uses that account to report the person, and the attacked party is silenced until Twitter can look into it. It's a bogus claim, so Twitter releases the attacked party and punishes the Twitter account, but the perpetrator doesn't care about that account anyway and is long gone.

Second: Modify your plan so that an account needs to be [X Time Period] old to use this feature. This penalizes legitimate new users and anyone who wants to abuse can just prepare by stockpiling throw-away accounts for future endeavors.

Third: Modify your plan to see if the same IP address is on multiple Twitter handles, and filter any false reports by IP address. Unfortunately, it's very easy to change IP addresses, and this will essentially remove anyone using either the same VPN someone else used or an internet cafe.

So, good idea, but it just won't work if you automatically suspend someone simply for a report, in this day of throw-away accounts, and modifying it to try to prevent throw-away accounts won't work and will hit legitimate users in the backlash.
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Re: Limits on freedom of speech

Postby CamelKnackRambleHort » 20 Jul 2016, 23:56

Adding my two cents. I think that freedom of speech should actually be called freedom to communicate. This is why art is included under "speech" when it is often categorically not speech. Art communicates. With that in mind I think that there are different types of speech/communication, and simply treating them all the same is a mistake. Each different type should be judged separately and different limits impose on them. In addition, I am going to be talking as if we can have perfect knowledge of intent of the speaker for the sake of argument.

First is simple statement, or the communication of an idea. "My shirt is blue." "There are more women than men." "Fire!" etc. The reasonable restriction placed on this that we have all agreed on is that making a statement that is likely to endanger people, especially one that is false, such as shouting "Fire!" in a crowded building, is restricted.

Next is discussion or sharing of ideas. A bunch of people getting together to discuss something, such as "are taxes unfair?" or "overwatch is a great video game." or "White people are the most superior race." This is the category that I think deserves the least formal restriction but the most informal restriction. A person can rant and rave for their entire life about how black people are evil devil spawn and LGBT people are demented and evil and there should be no charge brought against them. However, these people can also be denied a platform by the people who own the platform. For example, twitter banning someone for repeated racist tweets.

And yes, this is absolutely 100% censorship. It is an attempt to suppress an idea that is wrong in the hopes that the right idea will have a better chance. I can't say I disagree with the general idea, society progresses when we abandon bad ideas and replace them with new and better ideas. This is community driven censorship. Dangerous, but we can't simply allow all ideas to take hold in our society.

Next: Incitement. This is the type of speech that should have a stronger restriction than typically is given. It's aim is to get people to go out and do something. Incitement isn't necessarily bad. Advertisements are a form of Incitement speech, and so is you going onto your buddy about how great Dark Souls is with the intent for him to buy it as a result. They key here is you are trying to get someone to do something, even if you didn't explicitly say so. However, incitement speech is both the most powerful and dangerous of the three. Also included in incitement speeches are things like "we should kill all gays" or similar. These things often call to action of some sort, or suggest that an action might be taken, or imply that such an action is right. Incitement to violence, incitement to riot are both reasonable restrictions we place on this type of speech. I think in many cases incitement to harassment should be a similar, if lesser, crime.

The key of all these cases of formal restriction is that free speech that could reasonably lead to direct, significant harm to a real person and no significant benefit is not worth being allowed. A person shouting fire is breaking that principle - it causes direct, significant harm and has no value.

Milo repeatedly abused his right to free speech in such a way that he incited harassment and possibly violence to be caused. Twitter did the right thing in banning him in my book.

I hope that is coherent, I am so tired I am almost passing out.
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Re: Limits on freedom of speech

Postby Elomin Sha » 21 Jul 2016, 02:32

Memo is correct on the first point. That kind of stuff happens on YouTube all the time with false DMCAs when people flag people because they don't like what they say.
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Re: Limits on freedom of speech

Postby King Kool » 21 Jul 2016, 05:19

Well, the DMCA thing on Youtube could actually work the way it was intended if there was ANY consequence for someone filing a false claim. You touched on the comparison I wanted to draw in my larger post that I probably won't have time to make.

If you like or dislike the way that Youtube handles copyright stuff, it's not that different to the way Twitter handles complaints of harassment. The rules are nebulous, either by design or not, to snare toads like Milo in claims of harassment or abuse.

There's a bloke out there who was briefly suspended for having a "pornographic" image on his banner, but it was just an anime girl with large cleavage. Now, again, Twitter can do what it wants and have the rules it wants, but pornography has a specific definition. If they said "inappropriate," that has a far more fluid definition.

(I'm not linking to the guy's twitter, unless someone just doesn't believe me, because he's apparently on Milo's side not just to defend free speech, but because he thinks Milo is saying something important.)

This is why I'm always hesitant to ban people for something hard to define like 'harassment.' If you do it, you give this guy and his worthless speech greater significance. For instance, this guy I'm talking about mentioned the hashtag FreeMilo (I won't be putting an actual pound sign anywhere near it) and how it WAS trending... until it dropped out suddenly.

There is probably an innocent explanation for this. However, if Twitter is controlling what trending hashtags become visible... that has some very bad implications. You can make excuses about hate speech or whatever, but... should Twitter be deciding what ideas should be trending?

We need hard definitions for stuff like harassment, abuse, doxxing, etc. and it needs to be applied to everyone, regardless of what side of the coin someone's on. I think another important step would be to have the tweets that caused the ban AND their punishment to be public knowledge, rather than only being known by the internal forces. That way, we can judge for ourselves in a ban is in line with the policies.

My dox policy isn't perfect, and it might not even be practical, but that shows how hard it is to come up with a policy that actually works, much less squares with the spirit of the First Amendment.

---

Arclight, not to "I'll just leave these here" you, but the article I linked referred to dealt with Milo's speech almost certainly being protected and not reaching the level of a criminal act. I really reccomend anyone interesed in this go through the Popehat archives. Here are two recent articles:

https://popehat.com/2016/06/11/hello-youve-been-referred-here-because-youre-wrong-about-the-first-amendment/

https://popehat.com/2015/05/19/how-to-spot-and-critique-censorship-tropes-in-the-medias-coverage-of-free-speech-controversies/

https://popehat.com/2016/01/11/twitter-takes-a-side-in-the-culture-wars-lies-about-it/

https://popehat.com/2016/02/20/freestacy-but-from-what-in-defense-of-free-speech-legalism/

EDIT: fixed a link.
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Re: Limits on freedom of speech

Postby Arclight_Dynamo » 21 Jul 2016, 06:11

Fair - as I said, I don't know enough about what was said, exactly, to be able to judge for myself if it rises to the level of criminality.
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Re: Limits on freedom of speech

Postby SAJewers » 21 Jul 2016, 13:05

Speaking of the topic, this recently happened:

Quebec comedian ordered to pay $35,000 to disabled boy he mocked

Agree/Disagree on the decision?
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Re: Limits on freedom of speech

Postby Elomin Sha » 21 Jul 2016, 14:03

Without knowing the jokes, how it was done and started I can't really say anything towards that.
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Re: Limits on freedom of speech

Postby Arclight_Dynamo » 21 Jul 2016, 14:27

No issue with the decision - human rights legislation in Canada is much stronger than anything like it in the US, and it doesn't violate the Charter.

Edit:

You know, it's funny. I used to be a free speech absolutist. But after law school, and as I get older, I'm more and more drifting away from that. Probably a lot of it has to do with the harm we're seeing online being done by "free speech."

Protecting vulnerable individuals and groups from abuse is a perfectly legitimate restriction on free speech, if you ask me.
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Re: Limits on freedom of speech

Postby King Kool » 21 Jul 2016, 19:33

I thought I posted the link, but... I find it funny that the DAY after I decide to sideways-ten-foot-pole-style barely stick up for the odious and loathsome Milo, he's apparently deleting a quote of his from 2012 off his Facebook when someone keeps posting it.

Yeah, four years ago is a long damn time for the Internet, and I'll bet there's shit I said four years ago I can't stand by now. But damn, Milo. Just say something like, "Man, that was a while ago." Or make a response? How hard is that? Is leaving the comment there that offensive to you? It's almost like the guy who sold us cynicism posing as wisdom isn't as great as he thought he was. It was as if this guy who thought he was smarter than everyone else wasn't up to snuff... somehow.

Milo is really only useful as a "how far can we really push this free speech thing" asymptote. If he's going to censor comments on his Facebook and betray the one ideal that made keeping him around tolerable, he's got to conjure up a really great reason why.

I don't think he's up to the challenge.
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Re: Limits on freedom of speech

Postby korvys » 21 Jul 2016, 23:15

It's almost like some people can say they're for free speech, and not actually be for it. That some people can, unburdened by the shackles of 'honesty', change what they say without changing what they believe. That some people will say literally anything they think will get them power/money/fans, or to hurt people they don't like while staying just within the rules.

But then, who could possibly have predicted this? It's not like he'd exhibited any signs of this before, like maybe writing articles about how gamers are sad losers only months before jumping aboard the gamergate bandwagon trumpeting about how gamers are oppressed and downtrodden. If only that had happened, so people could have seen this coming.

ಠ_ಠ

EDIT: Rereading this, it's a bit snarkier than I like, but I get rather upset thinking of the harm he has caused, something only possibly due to the legitimacy given him by his fans.
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Re: Limits on freedom of speech

Postby pokute » 22 Jul 2016, 01:11

Freedom of speech is a counter-intuitive problem. Most of us were probably taught that freedom of speech is a basic human right and something "natural" to humans. Yet if one studies enough of the human world and its histories, one begins to realize that free expression as a norm is a rare anomaly that exists in pockets delimited by both geography and time. To truly understand the problem, one needs to turn the basic assumption on its head. What if freedom of speech is contrary to human nature?

But how could that be? The desire to express oneself is innate. Even I would attest to that. But if this is the only thing that comes to mind, then you have failed to recognize that freedoms and rights come with serious responsibilities on the part of every individual bearing those rights. In order to maintain a functional society, more freedom to express means more responsibility on the individual to carefully consider what is said (this touches on the freedom is slavery paradox). Without widespread individual care and responsibility, freedom of speech becomes a system rife with abuse. Once that happens, the public will demand laws and institutions that erode freedom. Basically, freedom of speech is contrary to human nature because most humans are naturally lazy and irresponsible.

When freedom of speech does work, it's in populations that have pervasive comprehension of its duties. You mostly see these in sufficiently educated populations that manage to throw off oppression through violent or peaceful means against tyrants or cultures. The necessary understanding inevitably fades over N generations and you know what happens next. The only thing anyone can do is recognize what part of history they're in and act how they must.
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Re: Limits on freedom of speech

Postby SAJewers » 22 Jul 2016, 03:35

Elomin Sha wrote:Without knowing the jokes, how it was done and started I can't really say anything towards that.


This is apparently it, with English Translation.
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Re: Limits on freedom of speech

Postby Darkflame » 22 Jul 2016, 04:57

AdmiralMemo wrote:
King Kool wrote:So, my Twitter rules would start with the highest crime at the top. If you make a Tweet that is a dox, as defined above, you get your account shut down. To determine what is a dox and what isn't, the "report" function could have a setting that says, "This is a dox!" and once someone (or possibly many, to avoid abuse) reports it, the tweet vanishes from all public view to stop its spreading, and the tweeter is temporarily suspended, along with anyone who retweeted it.

Then, a REAL LIFE PERSON who works for Twitter, and is in possession of good sense and a desire to follow the rules, investigates it and sees if it's a dox. If it is, the doxxer loses their account and can never be on Twitter again. The retweeters and other spreaders get a very stern message, telling them never to do it again, and if they proliferate a dox again, they will be banned as if they were the doxxer themselves.

If it turns out it AIN'T a dox, the person who reported it as a dox loses their report function for a great length of time, maybe six months. If they abuse it again, they get double the time without a report function. Maybe doing it too many times would result in a ban.
This... won't work. It's good in principle, but has so many ways to be abused.

First: Person finds someone they would like to silence for a while. Person creates throw-away email address, then uses it to create throw-away Twitter account. Person uses that account to report the person, and the attacked party is silenced until Twitter can look into it. It's a bogus claim, so Twitter releases the attacked party and punishes the Twitter account, but the perpetrator doesn't care about that account anyway and is long gone.

Second: Modify your plan so that an account needs to be [X Time Period] old to use this feature. This penalizes legitimate new users and anyone who wants to abuse can just prepare by stockpiling throw-away accounts for future endeavors.

Third: Modify your plan to see if the same IP address is on multiple Twitter handles, and filter any false reports by IP address. Unfortunately, it's very easy to change IP addresses, and this will essentially remove anyone using either the same VPN someone else used or an internet cafe.

So, good idea, but it just won't work if you automatically suspend someone simply for a report, in this day of throw-away accounts, and modifying it to try to prevent throw-away accounts won't work and will hit legitimate users in the backlash.



Seems the internet needs some sort of identity that for fills two sort-of-contradictory criteria;

1. Not linked to your real life ID. (to allow anonymity of speech - which can be very valuable)
2. Is permanent enough to not be casually chuck-able (like email is).


I dont know how it would work on a technical level, but some sort of ID system where you can only get a new ID, like, once a year?
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Re: Limits on freedom of speech

Postby Elomin Sha » 22 Jul 2016, 04:58

Soooo, the joke was that he's annoyed that after all the years he's defended him saying he's living his dream because he's dying, that he hasn't died yet?
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Re: Limits on freedom of speech

Postby Prospero101 » 22 Jul 2016, 07:55

I've always been of the opinion that you can SAY whatever you like, but your "freedom of speech," or, as I've heard online, "MUH FREEZE PEACH" does NOT exonerate you from the consequences of what you say. That means threats and hate speech deserve an appropriate response.

So if I call somebody a "cunt" (which I would never do, but for the sake of the hypothetical) and they say "Hey, could you not? That's a very offensive word," I can't claim that my free speech is being impinged upon just because I can't say whatever slur might pop into my head.
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