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Why censorship is practiced on social media.


Hawken

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25 minutes ago, Edumakated said:

Notice how all the big tech censorship seems to go in one ideological direction...

People should hear both sides of the story to make informed decisions without interference from those that have a narrative to push.

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We have to have some censorship.  It is NOT alright to shout fire in a crowded theater when there is no fire.

What would happen if I went up to a black man and called him the N-word?  That is, after he punched my face in.  That's hate speech and I could be prosecuted for it.

What about censoring pornography?  That's not an easy question.  It doesn't seem like there's any harm in looking at pictures, even ones showing penetration (defined as obscene by the Supreme Court).  BUT:  a lot of men get the wrong idea about what women should be while viewing pornography and they aren't willing to settle for a truly liberated woman.  And the result is that you can BUY Thai, Phillipina and Latina women that are offered online as "docile" and "submissive (Barry 1979)."  (I was going to link directly to such a site, but then remembered this is UM, a family site, so I censored it.).  Linda Lovelace said she was raped, tortured and forced into making the *spam filter*, “Deep Throat.”   What about the abuse of performers?  Censorship to eliminate the markets is one answer, but is it a good one?

On the other hand, how can we know what problems to work on if we can't get any information about them?  E. g.:  Trump's effort to censor global warming data from government websites.

Doug

 

Barry, Kathleen.  1979.  Female sexual slavery.  New York University Press, New York and London.  https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=nWMVCgAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PR11&dq=sex+slavery&ots=BrdX8qZDJz&sig=Z1hF1crRolVREBZaZQsg4Xi-jGU#v=onepage&q=sex slavery&f=false 19 Feb. 2024.

Edited by Doug1066
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18 minutes ago, Doug1066 said:

We have to have some censorship. 

Censorship begins when language is illegal.  Your N-word example is legal and should be.  Personally I think we are better off letting people express themselves so we can know who thinks what.  Over time people will think differently about some things according to pressure put on by society not by forbidding people from expressing some thought that some people are offended by.

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Money. Advertisers don't want their brand to be by or associated with certain things. Imagine an add popping up for something right beside a post going on some unhinged racist tirade. 

For example, I'm sure even Truth social moderates outright racist or violent content on their site.

That and customers. People don't want to see certain things or they leave 

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44 minutes ago, spartan max2 said:

Money. Advertisers don't want their brand to be by or associated with certain things. Imagine an add popping up for something right beside a post going on some unhinged racist tirade. 

For example, I'm sure even Truth social moderates outright racist or violent content on their site.

That and customers. People don't want to see certain things or they leave 

Totally agree.  What about companies that would pull advertisement because of pro LGBTQ+ content and posts?  That could also influence social media sites to censor that content. This is why there should be no forbidden topics that are legal. 

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There is a big difference in moderating overtly racist content and moderating speech you simply disagree with...  progressives act like they can't seem to figure out the difference.

Since progressives can't seem to win the war of ideas, they often rely on censorship to suppress competing ideas. 

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50 minutes ago, spartan max2 said:

Money. Advertisers don't want their brand to be by or associated with certain things. Imagine an add popping up for something right beside a post going on some unhinged racist tirade. 

For example, I'm sure even Truth social moderates outright racist or violent content on their site.

That and customers. People don't want to see certain things or they leave 

I always find it hilarious that companies will find some progressive cause du jour as an excuse to pull advertising from a conservative pundit video but then allow their ads to be shown on some on some of the most vile smut like gangster rap videos depicting murder or gratitious sex.

 

 

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17 minutes ago, OverSword said:

Totally agree.  What about companies that would pull advertisement because of pro LGBTQ+ content and posts?  That could also influence social media sites to censor that content. This is why there should be no forbidden topics that are legal. 

I agree but I don't really see any way that government involvement wouldn't cause worse problems. 

It's just something customers have to decide.

Hence we have "X", truth social, and now Threads. People have options.

Edited by spartan max2
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17 minutes ago, Edumakated said:

Since progressives can't seem to win the war of ideas, they often rely on censorship to suppress competing ideas. 

I mean progressives pretty much have won the war of ideas lol.

An overwhelming majority of people support gay marriage, abortion, and believe in climate change. Green energy marches on. Separation of church and state is the mainstream view.

Trans stuff is a new cultural war area but you guys will come around like you always do 😇

 

Edited by spartan max2
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1 hour ago, OverSword said:

Censorship begins when language is illegal.

There is very little language overall that is illegal, which is where I draw the line on whether something is free speech or not.  Social media companies aren't 'censoring' more in any general way than any other company or person for that matter, the websites are their property.  I don't think most people would complain about someone getting kicked out of a McDonalds for telling everyone that comes in how Burger King is better or if a publisher refused to publish a racist or Holocaust Denial book as 'free speech issues'.  Not sure why social media should be different, I think some people are just confused about what free speech is, it has never meant you should be free to say whatever you want wherever you want.  No one in general is owed someone else's platform or labor in order to express their speech - they can still go on the street corner and blab away.

(just commenting on your comment, not saying you disagree with any of this OS)

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26 minutes ago, spartan max2 said:

I mean progressives pretty much have won the war of ideas lol.

An overwhelming majority of people support gay marriage, abortion, and believe in climate change. Green energy marches on. Separation of church and state is the mainstream view.

Trans stuff is a new cultural war area but you guys will come around like you always do 😇

 

You have won appealing to the lowest common denominator intellectually.  It is easy to win ideas when you prevent anyone from challenging them.

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It's been my experience that on the whole, the progressive left has confused the concepts of "Hate Speech" and "speech that I hate", and stuff that belongs in the latter category gets removed by social media moderators for being in the former category even if that is objectively untrue. 

Edited by Paranoid Android
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3 minutes ago, Liquid Gardens said:

There is very little language overall that is illegal, which is where I draw the line on whether something is free speech or not.  Social media companies aren't 'censoring' more in any general way than any other company or person for that matter, the websites are their property.  I don't think most people would complain about someone getting kicked out of a McDonalds for telling everyone that comes in how Burger King is better or if a publisher refused to publish a racist or Holocaust Denial book as 'free speech issues'.  Not sure why social media should be different, I think some people are just confused about what free speech is, it has never meant you should be free to say whatever you want wherever you want.  No one in general is owed someone else's platform or labor in order to express their speech - they can still go on the street corner and blab away.

(just commenting on your comment, not saying you disagree with any of this OS)

I think the difference is that social media companies promote themselves as the town square.

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9 minutes ago, Paranoid Android said:

It's been my experience that on the whole, the progressive left has confused the concepts of "Hate Speech" and "speech that I hate", and stuff that belongs in the latter category gets removed by social media moderators for being in the former category even if that is objectively untrue. 

Exactly.  If it goes against their narrative, they use accusations of racism to shut down debate even if nothing racist was said.  For example, we can say the border needs to be secure and that turns into "You are being racist against brown people!"  

 

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20 minutes ago, Edumakated said:

I think the difference is that social media companies promote themselves as the town square.

Name the social media company that has said that they will not enforce their right to remove any post they want for any reason they want.  I think it's a pretty standard part of all of their terms of service.  The right to control your own property is arguably just as valuable a right as free speech.

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31 minutes ago, Liquid Gardens said:

There is very little language overall that is illegal, which is where I draw the line on whether something is free speech or not.  Social media companies aren't 'censoring' more in any general way than any other company or person for that matter, the websites are their property.  I don't think most people would complain about someone getting kicked out of a McDonalds for telling everyone that comes in how Burger King is better or if a publisher refused to publish a racist or Holocaust Denial book as 'free speech issues'.  Not sure why social media should be different, I think some people are just confused about what free speech is, it has never meant you should be free to say whatever you want wherever you want.  No one in general is owed someone else's platform or labor in order to express their speech - they can still go on the street corner and blab away.

(just commenting on your comment, not saying you disagree with any of this OS)

This brings up the public square debate which I believe will be settled at some point according to percentile of audience or membership size.  A platform the size of UM would be able to disallow any speech or subject that it wanted whereas something the size of X may have to follow guidelines.  We are a ways from that I think though.

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3 hours ago, Hawken said:

People should hear both sides of the story to make informed decisions without interference from those that have a narrative to push.

Friend, both sides have narratives to push.  Free speech is  about opinions, not about facts.   Do you think anyone can make an informed opinion by listening to two types of BS?  If you want to know what is going on, you need facts, not talking head commentators filtering it do you.  But its all good fun.  Facts have nearly disappeared from social media.

 

37 minutes ago, Edumakated said:

Exactly.  If it goes against their narrative, they use accusations of racism to shut down debate even if nothing racist was said.  For example, we can say the border needs to be secure and that turns into "You are being racist against brown people!"  

 

Isn't somebody else just using free speech to advance their narrative?  If somebody says you are full of sh** and a racist moron  can you sue them?  Maybe not but you can ignore them. The big platforms are just mud wrestling now, go for it if that is your cup of tea.   Don't talk about banning or burning books then.

In addition to free speech, I also have free hearing.  If I don't like what you are saying, I can walk away.  Try  it,  it works, unless you really like mud wrestling.

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7 minutes ago, Tatetopa said:

Friend, both sides have narratives to push.  Free speech is  about opinions, not about facts.   Do you think anyone can make an informed opinion by listening to two types of BS?  If you want to know what is going on, you need facts, not talking head commentators filtering it do you.  But its all good fun.  Facts have nearly disappeared from social media.

And I suppose you get your "alleged" facts from the corporate media where it's apparent they praise one side while being critical of the other. No fair reporting.

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36 minutes ago, OverSword said:

This brings up the public square debate which I believe will be settled at some point according to percentile of audience or membership size.  A platform the size of UM would be able to disallow any speech or subject that it wanted whereas something the size of X may have to follow guidelines.  We are a ways from that I think though.

Yes, this is what I was thinking also but I think the percentile should need to be very high to designate it as a public forum.  Looking quickly at the top social media platforms by user count:

Facebook (2.91 billion active users)
YouTube (2.56 billion active users)
Instagram (1.478 billion active users)
TikTok (1 billion active users)
Snapchat (557 million active users)
Pinterest (444 million active users)
Twitter (436 million active users)
Reddit (430 million active users)

...there seems to be a pretty reasonable distribution of user counts across different companies just within this top 8 (although Meta owns FB and Instagram), seems a lot less oligopolistic than some of our other industries.

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5 hours ago, Hawken said:

 

Not everyone watches Youtube.

Give us some context about what's there and what you want to discuss.

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5 minutes ago, Liquid Gardens said:

Yes, this is what I was thinking also but I think the percentile should need to be very high to designate it as a public forum.  Looking quickly at the top social media platforms by user count:

Facebook (2.91 billion active users)
YouTube (2.56 billion active users)
Instagram (1.478 billion active users)
TikTok (1 billion active users)
Snapchat (557 million active users)
Pinterest (444 million active users)
Twitter (436 million active users)
Reddit (430 million active users)

...there seems to be a pretty reasonable distribution of user counts across different companies just within this top 8 (although Meta owns FB and Instagram), seems a lot less oligopolistic than some of our other industries.

For our purpose it would probably be limited to American accounts.

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8 minutes ago, Kenemet said:

Not everyone watches Youtube.

Give us some context about what's there and what you want to discuss.

The video is about having one source (the government, media outlet, etc.) control a narrative, and having alternate narratives censored.  You have no way of verifying if what you are being told is the truth ,therefore censorship is bad.  It give a few examples of some instances where posts were removed by media at the behest of government such as the Hunter Biden laptop and people's social media posts concerning adverse affects of the Covid vaccine experienced by them.

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