this post was submitted on 05 Aug 2023
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The entire point of free speech is to support those with whom we disagree. It means absolutely nothing if you only support the speech of those with whom you agree. You need to be willing to say "Those ideas disgust me, yet I will gladly sacrifice my life in battle to defend the right of anyone to speak them." That's free speech.
Freedom of speech means the government can't suppress your speech. We have this in place to protect everyone from anyone who wants to use government to suppress speech.
The speech you are "supporting" amounts to "Those minorities disgust me, I don't think they should exist/have rights". Some TERFers are going to support removing the freedom of speech from Transpeople. You'll have trouble finding one who will state it directly, I imagine, but transphobes everywhere are working diligently to marginalize trans people, or even incite violence against them.
No private citizen (read: people who host kbin/lemmy servers) is obligated to host/platform/listen to anything. I certainly wouldn't host TERF opinions if it was my server. I wouldn't allow it at my dinner table. We must be intolerant of the intolerant to protect those whom the intolerant seek to attack.
It doesn't mean I think the government should start suppressing TERF views, that's not their place. This is what freedom of speech means.
No, like several others in this thread you are conflating the principle of the freedom of speech with the US First Amendment. They are not the same thing. The First Amendment was predicated on the principle of the freedom of speech. The principle of the freedom of speech is foundational to western civilization, and is applicable to kbin. The US First Amendment is inapplicable here, as it only applies to the government.
When you support free speech, the specific nature of the speech doesn't matter. I'm no TERF, or even close, but I'd gladly fight and die to protect their right to say whatever they believe, no matter how repulsive it may be.
No private citizen is obligated to support freedom of speech — legally that's correct. But for those of us who live in the West, we must fight to uphold western civilization lest it crumble around us. It's a moral duty, not a legal obligation. And once freedom of speech is abolished, goodbye kbin, and goodbye to all of our ability to express any of our thoughts in any context.
Then wish it goodbye then, because even under it's current operation this does not exist. Doing things like posting specific threats (threatening shootings, bombings), doxxing users, illegal porn, and other various behavior is still speech, we just all agree it's harmful.
I am going to descend into hyperbole for a minute, apologies. I think it's necessary because in my opinion you are already being hyperbolic. If Kbin.social chooses to ban this magazine, will you personally go fight kbin.social to unban it? Will you show up to this admin's house with the intent to persuade them? You said you'd fight and die, gladly, for what you see as free speech, so would it apply here? I don't think you would. This is why I am confused about whether you're speaking about the first amendment or not. When we start talking this way I can only assume you are speaking about fighting against a fascist government, because I don't think you mean to literally go threaten someone.
I support the idea that anyone should be able to say mostly whatever they want as long as they're not advocating harm for other groups of people. I also support instances moderating things they don't want to see on their platform. If a platform is too restrictive, I'll leave, sure. I will point out you're working awful hard to fight for a group a lot of other people think are deeply harmful to marginalized groups.
Yikes, thank you for calling out me out on this. I definitely did not mean to threaten anyone. I see how it could have been interpreted that way though, so thank you! What I meant is that if this dispute is eventually to devolve into a literal war, I will go to battle to fight in favor of free speech. So it's not quite right to say I was hyperbolic, but at the same time I was certainly not threatening anyone.
Based on your last paragraph, it honestly sounds like you and I mostly agree on this topic. And yes, if kbin started shutting down objectionable magazines, I'd close my account.
As your final point, thank you, I take that as a complement, though I'm no TERF, by any means, and I understand you didn't mean it as a complement. I really do support free speech that genuinely and completely.
I appreciate you being able to understand what I was trying to get at, even though it's clear we disagree. I will restate that I don't think forcing any private service to host content has anything to do with freedom of speech. This is doubly true for a service like Kbin, where anyone can host their own instance and host whatever they want.
Agreed on that — I don't support force either. Ultimately it's up to Ernest.
Uh, no, that's not the point of free speech. The point of free speech is that people can't be arrested for saying something the government doesn't like. That's it. Free speech does not mean that anyone is entitled to a platform, and it never has. It doesn't mean people have to tolerate shitty beliefs and treat them as equal to any other. It doesn't mean that you can just say whatever you want wherever you want without being told to get the fuck out. People like you have a fundamental misunderstanding of what free speech is and what its purpose is, and as a result you roll out the red carpet for fascists and the like so they can walk all over you.
Like so many other people in this thread, you are conflating the principle of free speech with the US First Amendment. Do they not teach this stuff in Civics Class anymore? The First Amendment is predicated on free speech. Free speech is fundamental to western civilization. The first Amendment is only applicable to government, whereas the principle of free speech is applicable to everyone in western civilization. We must all uphold free speech for all people, lest western civilization collapses.
In a free society, we have the downvote button for content we personally dislike. You're free to criticize their beliefs, and you're free to try to change their minds. But as soon as you try to silence anyone, you become an enemy of free society. We must all work to uphold western civilization, while realizing that it most certainly will always provide a platform for people (including ourselves) to explore all manner of ideas freely.
That's a nice flowery and poetic concept of free speech, but it wasn't the reason the 1st amendment was made, that was made so that people running for office couldn't silent their opposition and the people could voice their criticisms without fear of retaliation from the government.
But whatever, fine, I'll humour you.
If you want to uphold your version of free speech, then don't give people like fascists (and terfs, which are just fascists with a fake mustache on at this point) a platform. They will actively work to dismantle that free speech, and thus are antithetical to it. No amount of trying to counter their arguments with facts and logic or appealing to their emotions will do anything in a public forum, history has shown that only private intervention has any chance of success at deradicalizing people on an individual basis. If you let the movement gain more visibility and legitimacy by entertaining their views on your platform, then you are helping them destroy free speech, full-stop. They are the true enemies of free society, and if you actually care about it you have to protect it from bad faith actors taking advantage of and manipulating it to erode the rights of others.
In a free society nobody is obligated to give anyone a platform or to entertain insanity. I work to uphold all civilization, not just western, by telling nazis to fuck off. You wouldn't let a guy flinging his own shit around to get up on stage, and that's the equivalent of what nazis are, except they actively spread propaganda and recruit other shit flingers, which is a lot easier to do up on a stage where everyone can see them flinging shit, and their shit can reach a lot more people. If you let them in, eventually all that will be left is a bunch of people flinging their shit around, and everyone else will have either left to avoid getting hit, or will have already been covered in it and are now suffering because of that. And it will all be because you wanted to defend to the death that guy's right to throw shit at people.
And then in the end your "free speech" is nothing but a feces covered nightmare, and the mob of poop tossers moves on to the next stage, their numbers greater than ever. Congratulations.
You are authoritarian and you don't even realize it. All of your details are irrelevant. Get off your high horse, and recognize that this is a marketplace of ideas, where all of our ideas are equally valid. Stop trying to silence people. It will end badly for all of us.