USA Politics Thread

[Transhuman]

Anyone dumbfucked enough to believe the 2020 election was rigged through conspiracy isn't going to "snap out of it" through censorship.

[Uncle]

The concern over disinformation laws in the hands of facists is myopic to the concern over the rise of facism.

it's more important to stop fascism than to worry about whether the actions you're taking contribute to the rise of fascism?

perhaps we should simply outlaw fascism and imprison anyone who leans right, since fascism is exclusively a right-wing position? the right's worldview revolves around disinformation and ought to be suppressed in no uncertain terms, so why stop at controlling their speech?

[Madrun Badrun]

Anyone dumbfucked enough to believe the 2020 election was rigged through conspiracy isn't going to "snap out of it" through censorship.

This is a misunderstanding about how disinformation works.  The point would have been to prevent a situation that normalized the idea that the election was rigged in the first place rather than to try to convert people who already believe.  If laws had been in place, they could have actively tried to stop people from setting up Jan 6th and have held those responsible accountable after the fact.  But oh no what-if Bush had decided to imprison journalists in 2003 or Trump in 2020?  Guess Januarry the 6ths are just the price of a free America (that last point wasn't directed at you).

The concern over disinformation laws in the hands of facists is myopic to the concern over the rise of facism.

it's more important to stop fascism than to worry about whether the actions you're taking contribute to the rise of fascism?

Or you are taking away one of the only available tools you have to prevent the rise in fascism out of fear that the situation, which is already heading that way, will be worse and instead doing nothing and hoping for the best. 

[Uncle]

the available options aren't "establish a disinformation board or do nothing"

like I said above, we could also start with imprisoning those who lean right (this is not hyperbole or an implied slippery slope, since it's been established that stopping fascism is more important than worrying about what happens next)

[Madrun Badrun]

Stating that something is not hyperbole or a slippy slope doesn't mean that what you just said wasn't just that.  Imprisoning someone because they have right-wing beliefs vs imprisoning someone because they spread disinformation about something that is demonstrably false is not the same unless you believe that somehow you can't tell the difference between holding a political belief and advocating for those beliefs or spreading disinformation.  Saying that the election was rigged without any evidence is not a political belief.  Should the people who continued to push this narrative after it was proven to be false go to prison -- probably.  Should media companies that push conspiracy theories get fined for it -- most certainly.  It is an act that is harmful to democracy.  But but but what if such laws were used to imprison people who criticized Gore v Bush?  Because they are equal right and no one is part enough to tell the difference between the two events.  But but but what if they used such laws to go after communists in the 50's?  I'm glad that didn't happen.  But but but what if we aren't talking about the current rise in right-wing fascism that is happening in America right now but some hypothetical left-wing fascism, what then smart guy?         

What are the other available options then for the government?

[Transhuman]

This is a misunderstanding about how disinformation works.  The point would have been to prevent a situation that normalized the idea that the election was rigged in the first place rather than to try to convert people who already believe.

Censored people saying the election was rigged before any evidence had the opportunity to come out (not that there was any) would have played horribly. Instead, Republicans thoroughly humiliated themselves on an international stage.

[Madrun Badrun]

You can question the results initially*.  It was the continued misinformation that was the problem.  It was a long time between the election and Jan 6th. Embarrassment on an international stage is not a fitting punishment nor a discouragement to their actions.  You can't shame the shameless.  You can prevent them from doing such actions in the future. 

But to take it back further and what I meant about normalization in general.  You fine/jail Alex jones after he said Sandy hook was a false flag so that five years later people are not still believing in that and are primed to believe his next conspiracy.  You don't wait 20 years later after the damage is done. 

* but but but what if this is abused so that nobody can question nothing

[Uncle]

Saying that the election was rigged without any evidence is not a political belief.  It is an act that is harmful to democracy.

voting for trump is also an act that is harmful to democracy, yet you would defend a conservative's right to cast that vote?

we're talking about stopping the rise of fascism here, removing a few rights here and there from those who advocate for fascism ought to be counted among acceptable losses

"it's ok to vote fascists into power as long as you don't talk about it too loudly" is absurd

What are the other available options then for the government?

when your position is that stopping fascism is more important than examining potential consequences of your actions, I think you'll find a world of possibilities open to you

[Occam]

@Madrun Badrun
Very good posts, my thoughts exactly.
They don't understand that fascists don't care about laws, or free speech. Even now they are banning books, and that as soon as they have total control they will create "patriot" laws that will outlaw "unpatriotic" speech.

[Madrun Badrun]

Saying that the election was rigged without any evidence is not a political belief.  It is an act that is harmful to democracy.

voting for trump is also an act that is harmful to democracy, yet you would defend a conservative's right to cast that vote?

So what did I just say about there being a difference between political beliefs and spreading disinformation?   Can you not tell the difference between the two?  If trump spreads misinformation and people vote for him, why do you think I'm talking about imprisoning the people who vote for him?  You keep jumping to wild hypotheticals both about what I'm directly saying should happen and as some unthought-out consequence of imposing limits on free speech and it's pretty juvenile.  Like it's pretty easy to imagine a law where Trump gets fined for spreading misinformation on twitter without jumping to you-want-to-imprison-people-who-vote-for-him-who-is-the-real-facist-now.   

when your position is that stopping fascism is more important than examining potential consequences of your actions, I think you'll find a world of possibilities open to you

Cool, so you have no answer and want to hide behind glibness. 

[Nintex]

As long as the political fight remains like this you can't get rid of disinformation as both sides deploy it as they see fit.
Are we going to lock up people who believe there are 50 genders? Are we going to lock up people who think JFK Jr. is still alive?
There is no such thing as universal truth, not in a free society at least. All of science is based on the fact that you question things.
If no one questioned their rulers we would still believe the earth was flat and we would all be speaking Latin or something.
The fact that no one is happy with how elections are conducted (let alone counted) tells you the system sort of works.

In that sense, did the Twitter and Facebook censoring really do anything to stop the spread of misinformation? I don't think so.

[Uncle]

@Madrun Badrun
Very good posts, my thoughts exactly.
They don't understand that fascists don't care about laws, or free speech. Even now they are banning books, and that as soon as they have total control they will create "patriot" laws that will outlaw "unpatriotic" speech.

well let's be honest here, this would be fine as long as the books contained misinformation

[Madrun Badrun]

As long as the political fight remains like this you can't get rid of disinformation as both sides deploy it as they see fit.
Are we going to lock up people who believe there are 50 genders? Are we going to lock up people who think JFK Jr. is still alive?
There is no such thing as universal truth, not in a free society at least. All of science is based on the fact that you question things.
If no one questioned their rulers we would still believe the earth was flat and we would all be speaking Latin or something.
The fact that no one is happy with how elections are conducted (let alone counted) tells you the system sort of works.

In that sense, did the Twitter and Facebook censoring really do anything to stop the spread of misinformation? I don't think so.

Yes, it did.  The difference in reach Trump had before and after the Twitter ban was a lot.  Take your own posts for example.  Instead of thoughtlessly posting a trump tweet every five seconds, you had to wait for him to write his official statements or get a second had tweet from someone saying 'Just spoke to President Trump about X'.  And the amount of dumb Trump shit you posted decreased. 

The scientific method is not something people apply in their daily lives so the fact that since is about questioning things has no relevance to this.  The argument that if you begin to put limits on questioning some things means that the outcome is you can't question anything is dumb and demonstrably false as shown by the limits on free speech in most western counties.  Canada has hate speech laws and so that is why we can't question the flatness of the earth.  That's a chain of logic.

The fact that no one is happy with how elections are conducted (let alone counted) tells you the system sort of works.

Does it?  Go on.  How do you connect the fact of people being unhappy with how elections are done to outright lying about results being ok and unavoidable? 

[jorma]

@Madrun Badrun
Very good posts, my thoughts exactly.
They don't understand that fascists don't care about laws, or free speech. Even now they are banning books, and that as soon as they have total control they will create "patriot" laws that will outlaw "unpatriotic" speech.

the irony of this post blows my mind.
you're the one talking about banning speech here

You aren't the force for good that you seem to think you are. "A useful idiot" is what Lenin would have called you. Fascist goverment or no, "misinformation" is always going to be whatever the people in charge wants it to be, how is that so hard to understand?

[BIONIC]

So many care posts   

[Madrun Badrun]

@Madrun Badrun
Very good posts, my thoughts exactly.
They don't understand that fascists don't care about laws, or free speech. Even now they are banning books, and that as soon as they have total control they will create "patriot" laws that will outlaw "unpatriotic" speech.

well let's be honest here, this would be fine as long as the books contained misinformation

@Madrun Badrun
Very good posts, my thoughts exactly.
They don't understand that fascists don't care about laws, or free speech. Even now they are banning books, and that as soon as they have total control they will create "patriot" laws that will outlaw "unpatriotic" speech.

the irony of this post blows my mind.
you're the one talking about banning speech here

You aren't the force for good that you seem to think you are. "A useful idiot" is what Lenin would have called you. Fascist goverment or no, "misinformation" is always going to be whatever the people in charge wants it to be, how is that so hard to understand?

You understand that the point about banning books wasn't that banning misinformation is bad (when they do, oh the irony), it's that they are doing it anyway regardless of any misinformation laws they hypothetically might abuse.  The context is in the first sentence 'They don't understand that fascists don't care about laws, or free speech.'

[Occam]

As an example, I looked up the so-called Press Code of Europe's largest democracy, Germany.
https://www.presserat.de/pressekodex.html?file=files/presserat/dokumente/pressekodex/Pressekodex2017english.pdf
Something like this makes sense, is no slippery slope and has not led to fascism or a ban on free speech.
Quite the opposite, it prevents right-wing nuts from using mass media to amplify their lies and take over. In Germany, an entity like Fox News would be reprimanded for spreading proven lies and for not adhering to basic journalistic ethics, and then either start behaving or eventually lose its license.

Misinformation serves no useful purpose in the political discourse, other than to mislead people and to brainwash them. Which is what Trump's Big Lie has successfully done to 30% of Americans.

A democracy that does not defend itself against lies will eventually succumb to them.

Go ahead, read the German Press Code and point out which parts of it don't make sense or are somehow bad for democracy.
Freedom of speech does not mean freedom to lie without any consequences.

[Nintex]

Does it?  Go on.  How do you connect the fact of people being unhappy with how elections are done to outright lying about results being ok and unavoidable?

People suspected foul play with Bush/Gore and they suspected foul play when Kennedy won.
Hillary Clinton didn't trust the outcome of the 2016 election and neither did most of the liberal class.

Trump's really just a tourist in an already existing political system.
It doesn't matter if the loser is a sore loser or accepts the loss or if the winner starts an illegal war that no one wants.

If the system is valid is another discussion. Just by the sheer number of votes, voting methods and counting methods the margin of error in an election (or really any endeavor) of this size is significant.
And like all these systems most of it is window dressing. That's what the protestors found out on January 6th and afterwards, just like the liberals did between 2016 and 2020.
You can interfere with the ceremony or discover things after the vote but it doesn't change anything about the outcome. The only chance you have is the next election.

The system isn't fair or just because it isn't designed to be fair or just. It is designed to elect a President out of 330 million people.
And unless someone finds a better way to do that, the losing side will always point at what they perceive are the flaws in the system.

[jorma]

As an example, I looked up the so-called press code from Europe's largest democracy, Germany.
https://www.presserat.de/pressekodex.html?file=files/presserat/dokumente/pressekodex/Pressekodex2017english.pdf
Something like this makes sense, is no slippery slope and has not led to fascism or a ban on free speech.
Quite the opposite, it prevents right-wing nuts from using mass media to amplify their lies and take over. In Germany, an entity like Fox News would be reprimanded for spreading proven lies and for not adhering to basic journalistic ethics, and then either start behaving or eventually lose its license.

Misinformation serves no useful purpose in the political discourse, other than to mislead people and to brainwash them. Which is what Trump's Big Lie has successfully done to 30% of Americans.

A democracy that does not defend itself against lies will eventually succumb to them.

Go ahead, read the German Press Code and point out which parts of it don't make sense or are somehow bad for democracy.
Freedom of speech does not mean freedom to lie without any consequences.

Yeah, that's not law. Those are self imposed guidelines by the german press. Kind of a big difference 

[Madrun Badrun]

It doesn't matter if the loser is a sore loser or accepts the loss

Of course it does.

People suspected foul play with Bush/Gore and they suspected foul play when Kennedy won.
Hillary Clinton didn't trust the outcome of the 2016 election and neither did most of the liberal class.

I wonder why these didn't result in a Jan 6th?  Could it be because the thing you just said didn't matter -- being a sore loser -- actually matters and is actually increadablly dangerous?

If the system is valid is another discussion. Just by the sheer number of votes, voting methods and counting methods the margin of error in an election (or really any endeavor) of this size is significant.
And like all these systems most of it is window dressing. That's what the protestors found out on January 6th and afterwards, just like the liberals did between 2016 and 2020.
You can interfere with the ceremony or discover things after the vote but it doesn't change anything about the outcome. The only chance you have is the next election.

The system isn't fair or just because it isn't designed to be fair or just. It is designed to elect a President out of 330 million people.
And unless someone finds a better way to do that, the losing side will always point at what they perceive are the flaws in the system.

How people feel about their electoral system has nothing to do with lying about results.  All you gave is a conspirital ramble.  Or are you saying that these people don't actually believe their own shit and just using it as an excuse to act out and try to destroy the electoral system that they do not like?  Because you know that's kind of the point -- that behaviour is unacceptable in a democracy and you should not get to hide behind free speech.     

[benjipwns]

Occam and Madrun's position is that people who said blacks are equal humans to whites, that homosexuality isn't a mental illness, that ulcers aren't caused by stress, that the NSA is spying on citizens, that the government was lying about Vietnam, that people should wear masks during COVID, that Communists had not infiltrated the leadership of the State Department and Army, that the United States is at war in Libya, that people who've committed no crimes shouldn't be forcibly sterilized, that Biden won the 2020 election, that [insert person here] was killed by police, that recovered memories by children about fantastical satanic sexual abuse are bullshit, etc. should have been thrown in jail because the threat to democracy from these oppositional positions is too great.

[Madrun Badrun]

Why stop there?  You throw all Americans in jail, all Americans lose their voting rights, and democracy is safe for another century.   Extraordinary rendition of Nintex for good measure. 

[Nintex]

Occam and Madrun's position is that people who said blacks are equal humans to whites, that homosexuality isn't a mental illness, that ulcers aren't caused by stress, that the NSA is spying on citizens, that the government was lying about Vietnam, that people should wear masks during COVID, that Communists had not infiltrated the leadership of the State Department and Army, that the United States is at war in Libya, that people who've committed no crimes shouldn't be forcibly sterilized, that Biden won the 2020 election, that [insert person here] was killed by police, that recovered memories by children about fantastical satanic sexual abuse are bullshit, etc. should have been thrown in jail because the threat to democracy from these oppositional positions is too great.

That's basically how modern day China works and as we can see in Shanghai that isn't actually working anymore either.

These discussions always remind me of a quote from Sir Winston

Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.…’

I also recommend to watch the latest Adam Curtis documentary called Can't Get You Out of My Head. Which also touches on some of these subjects.
Especially the part where: "But what if the people are/think/vote wrong?" which has been at the center of modern day establishment political thinking.

[benjipwns]

As an example, I looked up the so-called Press Code of Europe's largest democracy, Germany.
https://www.presserat.de/pressekodex.html?file=files/presserat/dokumente/pressekodex/Pressekodex2017english.pdf
Something like this makes sense, is no slippery slope and has not led to fascism or a ban on free speech.
Quite the opposite, it prevents right-wing nuts from using mass media to amplify their lies and take over. In Germany, an entity like Fox News would be reprimanded for spreading proven lies and for not adhering to basic journalistic ethics, and then either start behaving or eventually lose its license.

Misinformation serves no useful purpose in the political discourse, other than to mislead people and to brainwash them. Which is what Trump's Big Lie has successfully done to 30% of Americans.

A democracy that does not defend itself against lies will eventually succumb to them.

Go ahead, read the German Press Code and point out which parts of it don't make sense or are somehow bad for democracy.
Freedom of speech does not mean freedom to lie without any consequences.

What is the German Press Council's opinion of that time the German government tried to charge Der Spiegel staff with treason, held them without trial and occupied their offices for a month while leaving the minister of justice out of the loop and denying to the Bundestag that any of this was happening?

[Madrun Badrun]

We got to make laws so that the thing that did actually happen can't hypothetically happen -- the danger of it happening is just too great.  Also yes, any limit on free speech and you just become China. 

[benjipwns]

You're not asking for just "any" limit on free speech, you're asking for the government to be able to imprison and kill people who disagree with the government. It's eviscerating the entire concept.

[Madrun Badrun]

No, it's not as per the many examples of hate speech laws that you no don't lead to counties summarily executing people just because they said something against the government.  These kinds of exaggerated hypotheticals are ridiculous, especially since, as was the original point, if you are already at the point where the government is actually abusing hate speech laws to execute people it doesn't like, you already fucked up and it wasn't the hate speech law that got you there.

[Potato]

We must stop fascism with........fascism!
 

[benjipwns]

If your burden for acknowledging the suppression of speech is "oh, you're not being summarily executed" you probably don't support free speech.

If the government can prosecute you for "disinformation" that will be defined solely and exclusively by the government you really really don't have free speech.

This is like pretty basic liberalism.

[Nintex]

What you need is a law to limit political ad spending and media appearances by political entities in general.
Trump became President not because of his Twitter takes or a couple of 4chan trolls but because he was a well known TV personality.
And if there was no fame in it, he wouldn't have wanted to become President.

That is quite unlike any European country too (I guess Zelensky as a former comedian/actor is closest to that out of all the current European heads of state not counting the circus across the channel and the TV President in the Kremlin).
Some politicians here are trying to emulate it but it's not really working for them as a bigger media profile comes with more scrutiny too.
They also did a Dutch version of the White House Correspondents dinner once. Which was torched for being a 'campaign stunt' for the sitting PM.

All in all free speech or censorship is not going to change anything if politics and the old media remain intertwined.

[Madrun Badrun]

I went to summarily executed because you brought up the idea that this will lead to the government murdering people.

You're not asking for just "any" limit on free speech, you're asking for the government to be able to imprison and kill people who disagree with the government. It's eviscerating the entire concept.

I support limits on free speech.  We disagree in that any kind of limit means a full loss of free speech.  It's so obvious that you can't have hate speech laws because no one can define what hate speech is and surely the government will abuse that power if it is allowed to define it?  Likewise you can't have disinformation laws because what is disinformation.  Surely no one can say that Alex Jones is empirically wrong about Sandy Hook and you wouldn't;t want the government to be able to decide if Sandy Hook happened or not would you?  First, the government says Sandy Hook happened, then you become China.

The idea you can't place a limit on free speech without a tyrannical government abusing it for anything is as much as an American fantasy as the second amendment will protect you from a tyrannical government.   

[benjipwns]

What you need is a law to limit political ad spending and media appearances by political entities in general.

"Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press"

[benjipwns]

I went to summarily executed because you brought up the idea that this will lead to the government murdering people.

How do you think the government enforces the law? Asking nicely?

I support limits on free speech.  We disagree in that any kind of limit means a full loss of free speech.  It's so obvious that you can't have hate speech laws because no one can define what hate speech is and surely the government will abuse that power if it is allowed to define it?  Likewise you can't have disinformation laws because what is disinformation.  Surely no one can say that Alex Jones is empirically wrong about Sandy Hook and you wouldn't;t want the government to be able to decide if Sandy Hook happened or not would you?  First, the government says Sandy Hook happened, then you become China.

The idea you can't place a limit on free speech without a tyrannical government abusing it for anything is as much as an American fantasy as the second amendment will protect you from a tyrannical government.

Yes, the threat of being prosecuted for your speech means you do not have freedom of speech. If you do not have a limiting principle for when the government can do this you do not support freedom of speech.

[Madrun Badrun]

That is only true on the assumption that any limit of free speech means no free speech.  It's only an all or nothing if you define it that way.   In before you post a definition like it is universal and the only accept one.

And yes, every law is enforced by murder.  That is the only means to enforce the law.     

[benjipwns]

So basically your argument is "why complain about your rights, especially your explicitly protected rights, being violated because it probably won't lead to you getting murdered, just imprisoned, and besides it probably won't lead to a totalitarian state immediately either and maybe nobody will abuse these powers at all"?

In liberal democracies these aren't acceptable reasons for violating people's human rights.

[Madrun Badrun]

Sure there is a human right to hate speech and misinformation.  It is Alex Jone's human right to lie about Sandy Hook and profit from it.  No true liberal democracy would fail to engage in American fantasies.   

[benjipwns]

Either you have free speech or you don't. There is no "degrees" because in one scenario you can't be prosecuted for your speech and in the other you can be prosecuted for your speech.

You don't have to support free speech, but don't act like you do when you want the government to prosecute people who don't speak only in the way the government wants.

America isn't perfect because it does suppress speech despite the clear letter of the law but it's the closest thing we've got.

[Madrun Badrun]

Ya and every other liberal democracy is teetering on the edge tyranny because they don't live up to your childish philosophy. 

[jorma]

Executive director Nina Jankowicz, who once described Hunter Biden’s laptop as “a Trump campaign product"

Heh too funny. So do we think that the DGB will be sanctioning their own boss for misinformation or do we just accept that misinformation is going to be whatever the current goverment says it is? 

[Potato]

Sure there is a human right to hate speech and misinformation.  It is Alex Jone's human right to lie about Sandy Hook and profit from it.  No true liberal democracy would fail to engage in American fantasies.   

It is also the right of those affected to sue Alex Jones for the harm his words cause.

[benjipwns]

Freedom of speech is the most essential component of a liberal democracy. The less a state suppresses that right the better it is, the more liberal, the more democratic.

Supporting the most essential human right is not childish. Wanting to use violence against people who say or may be about to say things you dislike is infinitely more childish.

[Madrun Badrun]

Designing your philosophy around the ability to say an idea in two words without caveats is a childish philosophy.

The less a state suppresses that right the better it is, the more liberal, the more democratic.

Just so we are clear, the most essential human right is that Alex Jones gets to lie about sandy hook and this is what makes America the supreme liberal democracy better than all others?

Supporting the most essential human right is not childish.

and this is really the crux of the problem.  You prefer living in a hell hole based on the purity of philosophy and I would rather live in a stable democracy based on some nuanced and complex ideas.  There are more important rights.  It is not the most essential.   And no, absolute free speech isn't the linchpin to the other rights.   

[benjipwns]

Yes, as I said, the most essential human right is freedom of speech.

If you cannot speak you cannot advocate for your rights. It is essential. Citizens are not subjects, they are equals.

You don't prefer a "stable democracy" to a "hell hole" you prefer order as imposed by an elite to a democracy. You'd rather be imprisoned than anyone dare think about speaking out of line. This is the only conclusion that can be drawn from thinking the biggest threat to democracy is not the state wielding its power completely unchecked to deliberately suppress human rights but that someone somewhere may say something uncouth.

[benjipwns]

Executive director Nina Jankowicz, who once described Hunter Biden’s laptop as “a Trump campaign product"

Heh too funny. So do we think that the DGB will be sanctioning their own boss for misinformation or do we just accept that misinformation is going to be whatever the current goverment says it is? 

She's going to be too busy with Nintex:

Jankowicz wrote last year about her mission: “The biggest challenge in identifying this content both for our team and for platforms is what we’ve dubbed ‘malign creativity’—the coded language, memes, and context-based content which allow harmful posts to avoid detection.”

[Uncle]

If you are in a place where the laws are being abused, the issue is the people abusing the law not the laws themselves.

a crazy pundit abusing his right to free speech is the problem, not the right itself

[benjipwns]

Trump gets re-elected in 2024, starts off by banning CNN, MSNBC and Fox, requiring everyone to watch OAN.

Under my simplistic childish system he's clearly violating the law. This is obviously a bad thing.

Under your nuanced adult system he's merely fighting disinformation. And you are the one now spreading disinformation to accuse him of otherwise.

"So you simply arrest Trump before he can win." And then DeSantis? And then J.D. Vance? And on and on? What about if someone is smart enough to not spread any disinformation until they get into power at which point it's no longer disinformation?

"You're worried about nothing, only criminals have something to fear." Why would anyone be concerned with a President and Administration who lies about spying on the American public, refuses to abide by the War Powers Act by declaring a war a "kinetic military action" and proclaims the authority to assassinate American citizens without trial. It's not like that one will be followed up by one headed by Donald Trump! It's not like we had another recent President who spread disinformation to start a war, signed a law he said he knew was against the law because it blatantly was and it took a decade to get finally struck down, and instigated earlier illegal spying and torture programs. Who cares? Someone on the internet said something gross and isn't in jail yet! Thank god the experts of those Administrations are fighting disinformation to protect us!

"This time the risk is too great! Things can go back to normal when the threat passes!" Oh good, it's not like we're currently in 42 declared national emergencies dating back to 1979.

"This is just an insane American hangup!" Yeah, sure, anyway our law says it's not allowed so I'm not sure what your problem is then. Feel free to comment but I doubt we're going to throw out our entire Constitutional order to placate your worries about people posting shit online. We're obviously going to do that because we're idiots who don't learn from history.

[Madrun Badrun]

You need to interlace your post with emoticons if you going to post like Nintex.

[benjipwns]

https://twitter.com/JRubinBlogger/status/1521911703499333634

[benjipwns]

You need to interlace your post with emoticons if you going to post like Nintex.

I'm no longer engaging with you here as you're clearly far too blinded with anger right now to do anything but throw baseless defamatory hate speech filled insults that should get you imprisoned for life.

[Transhuman]

Freedom of speech is the most essential component of a liberal democracy. The less a state suppresses that right the better it is, the more liberal, the more democratic.

Oh yeah? Name me one non-democratic country that doesn't have freedom of speech. Go ahead, i'll wait.

[benjipwns]

Oh yeah? Name me one non-democratic country that doesn't have freedom of speech. Go ahead, i'll wait.

It's true, you got me:

ARTICLE 125. In conformity with the interests of the working people, and in order to strengthen the socialist system, the citizens of the U.S.S.R. are guaranteed by law :

a) freedom of speech;

b) freedom of the press;

c) freedom of assembly, including the holding of mass meetings;

d) freedom of street processions and demonstrations; These civil rights are ensured by placing at the disposal of the working people and their organizations printing presses, stocks of paper, public buildings, the streets, communications facilities and other material requisites for the exercise of these rights.

ARTICLE 126. In conformity with the interests of the working people, and in order to develop the organizational initiative and political activity of the masses of the people, citizens of the U.S.S.R. are ensured the right to unite in public organizations - trade unions, cooperative associations, youth organizations, sport and defence organizations, cultural, technical and scientific societies; and the most active and politically most conscious citizens in the ranks of the working class and other sections of the working people unite in the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolsheviks), which is the vanguard of the working people in their struggle to strengthen and develop the socialist system and is the leading core of all organizations of the working people, both public and state.

ARTICLE 127. Citizens of the U.S.S.R. are guaranteed inviolability of the person. No person may be placed under arrest except by decision of a court or with the sanction of a procurator.

ARTICLE 128. The inviolability of the homes of citizens and privacy of correspondence are protected by law.

[Potato]

Freedom of speech is the most essential component of a liberal democracy. The less a state suppresses that right the better it is, the more liberal, the more democratic.

Oh yeah? Name me one non-democratic country that doesn't have freedom of speech. Go ahead, i'll wait.

They all have freedom of speech, it's just that the governments have freedom to make them disappear too.

[Uncle]

it's so shortsighted to not even consider the breadth of speech that is some form of disinformation

nearly all jokes are lies

"what did the salamander say to the rabbi?" "salamanders cannot speak and it erodes our foundational pursuit of truth to even chuckle at the idea that they might"

"Dave Chapelle's latest special implies a large portion of the trans community is crazy which does not reflect reality and cannot be aired"

all fiction is disinformation; infinity stones do not exist, nor hyrule, nor half life 3



"but that's ridiculous, they would never try to control something as obviously benign as storytelling, it would only ever be used for good"



alright, so now Alex Jones starts telling "stories" to his audience about Blandy Blook Elementary...

"well they can't allow that, I suppose they'll just stop the disinformation which seems pretty obviously an allegory in this vein"

alright, so next an author writes a story which can be interpreted as a loose retelling of real life events completely by accident and finds their book censored (explicitly or through publisher chilling effect), and before you know it anything that calls into question the benevolence of a governing body (Hunger Games et al) require scrutiny if not outright banning

in what universe is this tenable

[james]

Benji concern trolling about free speech when the court says there's no right to privacy. Open that anus nice and wide

[benjipwns]

Benji concern trolling about free speech when the court says there's no right to privacy. Open that anus nice and wide

james hysterical about a highly skeptical looking leaked draft that he didn't read at all accusing someone of acting in nefarious bad faith when repeating positions they've held for their entire time on The Bire and were responding to someone else introducing the topic of suppressing free speech in the first place

[Potato]

it's so shortsighted to not even consider the breadth of speech that is some form of disinformation

nearly all jokes are lies

"what did the salamander say to the rabbi?" "salamanders cannot speak and it erodes our foundational pursuit of truth to even chuckle at the idea that they might"

"Dave Chapelle's latest special implies a large portion of the trans community is crazy which does not reflect reality and cannot be aired"

all fiction is disinformation; infinity stones do not exist, nor hyrule, nor half life 3



"but that's ridiculous, they would never try to control something as obviously benign as storytelling, it would only ever be used for good"

(Image removed from quote.)

alright, so now Alex Jones starts telling "stories" to his audience about Blandy Blook Elementary...

"well they can't allow that, I suppose they'll just stop the disinformation which seems pretty obviously an allegory in this vein"

alright, so next an author writes a story which can be interpreted as a loose retelling of real life events completely by accident and finds their book censored (explicitly or through publisher chilling effect), and before you know it anything that calls into question the benevolence of a governing body (Hunger Games et al) require scrutiny if not outright banning

in what universe is this tenable

It really is an insane proposal to try to regulate truth, especially in a country like the US which is historically opposed to regulation (or at least over-regulation).

Australia, in contrast, is a country that's highly open to regulation (to the point of frequent over-regulation) and if any government proposed a truth ministry, they'd be laughed out of office at the first opportunity.

[Occam]

In the pre-insanity days, there used to be a fairness doctrine in the US, which ensured that something like Fox News couldn't happen.
Of course this only applied to broadcast TV and radio, because cable and the internet didn't exist when it was implemented by the FCC in 1949. The rule was found to be constitutional and not violate free speech on several occasions. In 1987 Republicans managed to do away with it. Decades of right-wing talk radio and Fox News etc. followed, making Trumpism possible. (It was actually during Nixon that Republicans noticed that their best course of action would be to shape the perception of reality, because reality itself did not support their views).

Scientists conducted a study about what happens when Fox News viewers watch CNN for a month (while still supporting him, they actually became more critical of Trump and other issues; of course the effect quickly vanished for most participants once they went back to Fox afterwards).

But the findings also point to the risk that partisan media pose for democracy.
"How can a voter hold a politician accountable for an act of malfeasance if they do not know it occurred?" the authors asked in their study. "Or, alternatively, how can voters reward a … politician for good performance if their chosen media network does not inform them of it?"

https://news.berkeley.edu/2022/04/07/when-fox-news-viewers-flip-to-cnn-their-opinions-shift-too-study-finds/

Having news media adhere to basic ethics of journalism (fact check issues, rectract stories that have been proven wrong) and report issues from the entire spectrum in no way violates free speech.

I feel like I am talking to kindergarteners here. No Jimmy, this wouldn't take away your favorite fairy tale picture books.

[benjipwns]

In the pre-insanity days, there used to be a fairness doctrine in the US, which ensured that something like Fox News couldn't happen.
Of course this only applied to broadcast TV and radio, because cable and the internet didn't exist when it was implemented by the FCC in 1949. The rule was found to be constitutional and not violate free speech on several occasions.

So you admit it wouldn't have applied while being sure in your insistence that it wouldn't have allowed Fox News. The FCC's ability to regulate content doesn't apply to cable and the internet because those aren't public airwaves of a limited spectrum, they are outside its jurisdiction.

And you skip over the fact that administrations used it to attack political opponents, the very abuse you claim wouldn't happen if freedom of the press was curtailed to protect the government from criticism.

Having news media adhere to basic ethics of journalism (fact check issues, rectract stories that have been proven wrong) and report issues from the entire spectrum in no way violates free speech.

Prosecuting journalists absolutely violates free speech and free press.

It's hilarious how you guys keep calling other people children while demanding the state imprison journalists (and anyone else) for saying things the government doesn't like. (And I missed this initially but it helps delineate why Madrun is massively more sensible, Occam actually wants the government to compel speech people may not wish to speak.)

Dress it up with language games all you like as defending a fragile democracy teetering on the brink (even though speech suppression has never protected a collapsing democracy) but you're not going to get around the fact that you're calling for the state to use violence to suppress any views it doesn't want people to say or hear. You're not going to get around that you want people to fear that their speech may get them imprisoned or worse. It'd be far more honest to simply call on outlawing the Republican Party, rounding up everyone involved and salting the Earth than this horseshit about just wanting to protect the helpless democracy from opinions that all the elites know are simply too dangerous for the people to be exposed to.

Thankfully despite your views dominating much of both of our political corporations we still have "shall make no law" as a backstop even if no one will face consequences for violating it and undermining the essence of democracy itself in the pursuit of a false sense of security for their power and position.

Liberty is meaningless where the right to utter one’s thoughts and opinions has ceased to exist. That, of all rights, is the dread of tyrants. It is the right which they first of all strike down. They know its power. Thrones, dominions, principalities, and powers, founded in injustice and wrong, are sure to tremble, if men are allowed to reason of righteousness, temperance, and of a judgment to come in their presence. Slavery cannot tolerate free speech. Five years of its exercise would banish the auction block and break every chain in the South. They will have none of it there, for they have the power. But shall it be so here?

Even here in Boston, and among the friends of freedom, we hear two voices: one denouncing the mob that broke up our meeting on Monday as a base and cowardly outrage; and another, deprecating and regretting the holding of such a meeting, by such men, at such a time. We are told that the meeting was ill-timed, and the parties to it unwise.

Why, what is the matter with us? Are we going to palliate and excuse a palpable and flagrant outrage on the right of speech, by implying that only a particular description of persons should exercise that right? Are we, at such a time, when a great principle has been struck down, to quench the moral indignation which the deed excites, by casting reflections upon those on whose persons the outrage has been committed? After all the arguments for liberty to which Boston has listened for more than a quarter of a century, has she yet to learn that the time to assert a right is the time when the right itself is called in question, and that the men of all others to assert it are the men to whom the right has been denied?

It would be no vindication of the right of speech to prove that certain gentlemen of great distinction, eminent for their learning and ability, are allowed to freely express their opinions on all subjects – including the subject of slavery. Such a vindication would need, itself, to be vindicated. It would add insult to injury. Not even an old-fashioned abolition meeting could vindicate that right in Boston just now. There can be no right of speech where any man, however lifted up, or however humble, however young, or however old, is overawed by force, and compelled to suppress his honest sentiments.

Equally clear is the right to hear. To suppress free speech is a double wrong. It violates the rights of the hearer as well as those of the speaker. It is just as criminal to rob a man of his right to speak and hear as it would be to rob him of his money. I have no doubt that Boston will vindicate this right. But in order to do so, there must be no concessions to the enemy. When a man is allowed to speak because he is rich and powerful, it aggravates the crime of denying the right to the poor and humble.

The principle must rest upon its own proper basis. And until the right is accorded to the humblest as freely as to the most exalted citizen, the government of Boston is but an empty name, and its freedom a mockery. A man’s right to speak does not depend upon where he was born or upon his color. The simple quality of manhood is the solid basis of the right – and there let it rest forever.

[Nintex]

The cawthorn controversy

"It was just a prank bro"

[VomKriege]

https://twitter.com/sfpelosi/status/1521294980488204289

Lofty lefty