Fuck Spez
Absolutely fuck spez.
But he’s right here. Just because he’s a fuckstick doesn’t mean he’s always wrong on every issue 100% of the time.
Various forms of censorship under the flag of ‘online safety’ have been pushed by governments since the internet began to exist. And before that with print media and television. Censorship is not the answer. Never was. First it was for porn, then it was for video games, then it was for hate speech, it’s always something.
But in the words of Captain Jean-Luc Picard,
“With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably.”
Censorship must be opposed.
I think reducing the visibility of some kinds of content can be good, especially for those under 18. E.g. when it comes to content around suicide, I think it is better if children/teenagers see “there is support for you, please speak to a charity for free on this phone number” instead of pro-suicide content.
That I would actually very much agree with. As Elon himself said in the early days of the Twitter takeover, “free speech does not mean free reach”.
This is also why I think engagement algorithms are a cancer on our civilization. If it is in a platforms monetary interest to amplify the most vile anger inducing stuff, be that stuff that is actively bad like hate speech or simply divisive like a lot of political crap, that is bad for our society. It pushes us farther apart when we should be coming together to fix the problems that we can agree on.
As Elon himself said in the early days of the Twitter takeover, “free speech does not mean free reach”.
I understood that to mean “I want to claim I’m a ‘free speech absolutist’ while actually only promoting things I agree with”
In concept I agree with him on that. I support your right to say awful shit, but I am not going to spread that message to others. Where Elon lost the plot was thinking of Twitter as a public square. It’s a nice thought, but it requires the whole platform to be 100% neutral and unbiased. So it’s all good to call Twitter the public square, but that’s a lot harder to take seriously when the guy in charge of policing the square is heavily biased.
it’s all good to call Twitter the public square, but that’s a lot harder to take seriously when the guy in charge of policing the square is heavily biased
I agree. A public town square is good but like you say, it should be neutral, and Xitter is not that.
On the censorship thing, maybe it is okay if an online messaging website bans certain content, like pro-suicide content, or pro-terrorism content, etc. You could call that censorship but you could also call it safety. I don’t think anybody really believes in 100% free speech anyway, because if a person shouts “FIRE!” in a crowded theatre, when there is actually no fire, and it causes a stampede which kills people, should we not punish their speech because they’re free to say it?
Freedom of political speech is important, but maybe there should be some fundamental rules about certain types of speech.
On the censorship thing, maybe it is okay if an online messaging website bans certain content, like pro-suicide content, or pro-terrorism content, etc. You could call that censorship but you could also call it safety.
I think that should go either way and I have no problem if a platform decides to ban that kind of stuff. I certainly have no desire to consume such material.
I have a BIG problem when the government decides that platforms are required to ban things. Even if they’re things I don’t myself want to read.
It’s a slippery slope.
Why does anyone still use reddit? Why does anyone still use Twitter? Why does anyone still use Instagram?
Find me easier to access niche communities and I’ll be gone from reddit. I hoped Lemmy would blow up. Instead, reddit just shrank.
Find me easier to access niche communities
Have fun trying to discuss anything that isn’t about linux, american politics or reddit/amazon/elon bad!!. Lemmy is just a decentralized circle jerk.
Well i guess we should have seen it coming right. The people pissed enough with Reddit to leave were most likely to be technology proficient users and bourgeois hating leftists
Forgot people whose only opinion is hating the website they’re on.
I do not hate the concept of lemmy and the fediverse, But I’m also not going to pretend that lemmy at its current state isn’t a circle jerk. Lemmy needs more diverse groups of people. Like GrammerPolice said above, most people who migrated from reddit were people with very strong stance on their opinions. And there’s intense hostility to anything that is even slightly against what they believe in.
It requires them to restrict certain categories of video, so that users cannot share content on cyberbullying, promoting eating disorders, promotion of self harm or incitement to hatred on a number of grounds.
Wow, what a horrible, restraining overreach.
I am shedding tears for the 1.2% engagement loss this would cost Reddit next quarter. Imagine what they have to pay devs for filtering abusive videos!
(I hate to sound so salty, but its mind boggling that they would fight this so vehemently, instead of just… filtering abusive content? Which they already do for anything that actually costs them any profit).
Probably would require them to actually pay moderators! The horror!
