The KGB Oracle Forums General Public Discussion (SPECIAL ACCESS) KGB Political Debate Central Is the left eating itself?

Your replies are always giant shit sandwiches, which you can pick through and eat yourself. Your post had some issues worth addressing, but put simply I refuse to wade through your attempts to misrepresent what I'm saying in order to argue a debate I'm not having. If someone else wants to raise those issues which are relevant I'm happy to reply.

Sorry, this isn't your Facebook echo chamber, you don't get to post what is Left's equivalent to racist uncle conspiracy theories and not get called on it.

Again:



No, this is not a coherent opinion.




No, there is no "real consequences", as in nobody got raped as a consequence of Ghomeshi's essay.



I understood your position as "MeToo movement has gone too far" opinions should not be voiced or discussed. Did you intend for this to come across in this way?

Hey thanks for attempting to cut through your bullshit. I'll reward you with a reply.



So first of all, no, this is not my opinion. I believe everyone has a right to hold and voice their own opinions, and be accountable for them, and that should have been obvious in what I stated about Ghomeshi which you quoted.

In this case, though, it actually isn't relevant what either of us thinks about MeToo. What's relevant is the original position you held which implied that Buruma was fired due to simply publishing Ghomeshi, which you used to back up your main thesis that some on the left would rather have censorship than free speech. The implication of connecting these two things is that Buruma was being censored for publishing an opinion that is unpopular with the left.

However, for Buruma to be fired for only publishing an unpopular opinion, you are assuming that whomever had the power to fire Buruma believed that promoting an opinion is something that can be done via publishing, and they disagreed with the opinion Buruma promoted, and therefore he was fired. If I'm being charitable, I could also say that you were instead implying that they didn't care what Buruma did, but they were kowtowing to outside pressure - I've heard from either their advertisers and/or from twitter.

From the NYRB editorial staff's statement regarding this issue, it's clear that they deny some assumptions of both of these cases. They deny that Twitter had anything to do with it, and they deny that this marks a new policy of avoiding publishing controversial opinions.

More importantly, what that statement does instead is to confirm that they believe that as a result of their ability to promote an opinion through their platform, they intend to be careful about not doing so. They therefore believe that their publication has an editorial responsibility in providing a balanced package of opinion, rather than to promote only one side of a specific agenda; and on this criteria they feel they have failed in this instance. After having lived through decades of Fox News, it's clear to me that platform is promotion (subtle but important difference from "publishing is agreement"), and that a responsible editor trying to present a balanced viewpoint should have only published Ghomeshi's rant alongside something to temper it - like editorial fact checking or alternative viewpoints. Which is what they explicitly stated they would rather have seen from their editorial effort in this case.

Now, I am assuming that their adherence to balance is a result of their agreement with my position that unbalanced promotion also has real consequences, but I grant that is not something they have stated. However if that is truly something you wanted to debate, as a preview of my evidence I again refer you to the fallout of decades of Fox News which we are currently suffering.

I am pleasantly surprised that you accurately represented my position. Thank you.



I don't find their denial to be credible, especially because alternative explanation for their actions doesn't make sense to me.



Could you explain to me what is practical difference between "careful not to promote" and outright censorship?



Perhaps by virtue of being familiar with this story I assumed that acknowledging opposing opinion, that got more than plenty of coverage already, is stating the obvious. After all, when speaking about OJ Simpson, it safe to assume that majority of listeners would be familiar with the background.



I think Fox News is a special case that you cannot generalize from. Fox News is awful because they intentionally mislead and withhold information. Ghomeshi's essay does not have these characteristics. If you disagree, please point to specifics with explanation.



I don't subscribe to this explanation. While it is plausible, it requires further proof to be credible.



I agree with this point.

Well, I am of the opinion that censorship is an action only the government, not private citizens or organizations, can take, because my definition of censorship is the inability to exercise speech. Unlike the government, private organizations don't have total control over all of an individual's ability to exercise speech. So doing anything as a private organization is by definition not censorship.

For example, I don't believe an "NC-17 rating" by the MPAA is tantamount to censorship, even though it functionally suppresses distribution, because that is an internal decision by a private organization about whether the content is appropriate for them. As the creator is still free to pursue other outlets, they are able to exercise speech and therefore they are not censored. The market ultimately does not have an obligation to provide the exercise of speech. I think there are probably edge cases here worth thinking about, like having your only available broadband provider decide to not serve certain websites, but I don't think these specific cases are applicable in a general sense.

Censorship, by contrast, is what happened to the film Birth of a Nation in the early 20th century when state governments prevented it from being shown after being petitioned to do so.



I do think his essay had falsehoods and lies of omission, but honestly I don't think it's important here. I don't even think the degree of impartiality of the editorial staff at NYRB is important, except that it shows their awareness of their ability to promote through publishing and how that relates to my argument and informs their action of the removal of their editor. Even if they were lying and were in fact just reacting to market pressure, their stated reason is insightful to this debate.

As a for profit organization, it's within their right (and arguably their obligation in case of regulated public companies) to fire someone because of sufficient market pressure, just as it would be within their right to begin promoting some opposing ideology or to demand increased impartiality.

Fox is a special case in the sense that they were initially impervious to market pressure due to massive initial capital, and through that have managed to cultivate their own self sustaining audience. I think there's a lot to be learned from this formula, and how it's being used by other organizations.


Edit:


I actually wish this were not strictly true. For example, I would support measures that would require the media to allocate a limited portion of their airtime to partisan political content, so long as it was distributed among eligible candidates fairly... somehow. But I think this is another edge case since I don't think it should be applied to every idea that could possibly be political in nature.

I fundamentally disagree with your application of definitions. You are technically correct in context of First Amendment, but protection from the government censorship is only one aspect of overall freedom of speech. Inability to exercise speech can come from other areas, like getting deplatformed or threat of losing ability to make living. More so, with most of the speech moving to digital format you have an issue with corporations like Google, Twitter, and Facebook having the power to effectively silence you. In turn, these corporations can be pressured into censorship.

What is the point of having theoretical free speech rights if it can't be exercised unless you are independently wealthy and powerful? We are few short years away from technology ensuring the end of anonymity where anyone could be potentially discovered and made an example of by a digital mob. The same technology also ensures that nothing that was ever said will be forgotten. We already have numerous cases (e.g. Damore) of innocent people getting dragged by an online mob with the explicit intent to silence them. Getting someone fired over speech is not any less damaging than assaulting them with a bike lock at a political rally. Both are done with explicit intent to chill speech.

Do you think the path we take to arrive to illiberal society devoid of free speech somehow going to matter? Do you expect it to be less oppressive if it is multinational corporations or social justice groups and not the government censorship that gets us there? Tyranny of government is only one type of tyranny.

In case of Ghomeshi the desirable outcome is to dismiss or mock him, not to attempt to take his voice away. Whatever benefits of deplatforming Ghomeshi are, the can't possibly outweigh grievous harm of enabling and propagating censorship.




Just to clarify, I did not say it was illegal to fire the editor, simply that it was objectionable action. As in, such firing goes against my core values. More so, publications and journalists should be held to a higher standard than 'whatever makes profit' in regards to speech.

https://areomagazine.com/2018/10/02/academic-grievance-studies-and-the-corruption-of-scholarship/



Link is to the essay by the people themselves, as opposed to one of the many other periodicals that have covered this lately. I consider it important reading, partially because it illuminates a serious problem in certain segments of academia - but also because the findings will undoubtedly have political reverberations down the road. In truth, I first noticed this issue in my own university days well over a decade ago, though it had yet to metastasize into what is has become today. But also because I think that both poor arguments and poor scholarship create weakness in even the best intentioned initiatives. Something not supported by rigor and reason is just a fad of public opinion, and can often cause reasonable positions and scholarship that appear superficially close in some manner to take a big hit as well.

General shoutout to the thread:

"He that would make his own liberty secure, must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty, he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself." ~ Thomas Paine

"He who dares not offend cannot be honest." ~ Thomas Paine