this post was submitted on 24 Sep 2023
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Privacy
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The tolerance intolerance discussion is interesting, and very sticky.
If speech is criminally intolerable, then it should be up to the criminal system to prevent that speech. Not digital platform providers to enforce their opinions. Or at least that's why I support the fediverse.
"If there be any among us who would wish to dissolve this Union or to change its republican form, let them stand undisturbed as monuments of the safety with which error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it. I know, indeed, that some honest men fear that a republican government can not be strong, that this Government is not strong enough; " - Jefferson, Thomas speech
Personally I fall on the the side of a free and open discord, we cannot be fearful of evil ideas, we must expose them to sunlight so that they may shrink away by the minds of conscionable people.
Rhetorically I've seen many internet arguments use the intolerance of tolerance idea, to shut down any idea they don't agree with. They wield it as a shield to prevent open debate. I think that hurts discourse, and finding common ground, it polarizes people in a discussion.
We completely agree that it's a difficult question, and a slippery slope. And also on the point of government's role.
Do you them believe that privately run platforms shouldn't have the right to choose what gets put on their platform? Or is it a matter of scale, like, Sxan's GoToSocial server can do what it wants, but The-Platform-Formally-Known-As-Twitter shouldn't?
I always think of the brigading that happens on "open" platforms. The Masses will effectively censor any real debate, but especially if they know there are no rules. How are we to deal with that?
You bring up some excellent points. Right now, there's private organizations that are acting as de facto public squares. I think when they're the only option, it gets muddy, if they're going to be so essential to society, they have to operate like utilities, not have opinions beyond legal or illegal.
For all the platforms, that are just options, but are not de facto public squares, I'm perfectly happy for them to have opinions about what can or cannot be said.
Let's take the fediverse, as an example, any individual server can have its own opinions, and enforce them through moderation - perhaps very heavy moderation. And that's totally fine. Because any group of people can run their own instance, and have their own moderation policies, and it's all on an equitable playing field.
The brigading, that we're seeing on these open platforms, is the early adopter phenomenon, and that groups tend to move together. The only real solution, is heavy moderation, on different instances. So if you have a community that's talking about fishing, the moderator should prevent brigading from discussing things that don't relate to fishing. "Person I hate was caught fishing, we should ban them from fish, etc etc oh you support fish killing...." the moderator should stop that.
The litmus test I would use, to determine if a social media company was a public space, and should act by utility rules, rather than private club rules - would be, does the government use that platform to communicate with citizens?
X-twitter, Facebook... both have governments using them to communicate directly if their citizens, sometimes as the only means of communication. So they are de facto public squares and utilities.
But the governments prefer the current situation, as they have channels to ask for removal, but have zero liability and the company is covered, as they can do as they please, because its their private platform where they are allowing them. So I dont see why would the government declare social media as public squares...