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

Important correction, it is incorrect to call a value an assumptions (or premise). The difference is that in logic declaring something a premise implies it is universally true, while value means that it is true to me. In formal logic you can demonstrate that argument is fallacious by demonstrating that a premise is not true. Values work differently. I am not trying to sneak in moral relativism into this discussion, I am just making a point that I view free speech as a core value, but there might exist other people that do not share my values. This doesn't invalidate my values or make my arguments based on values wrong. You are correct in pointing out that I believe that free speech should be a universal value, but it is pointless to try to pin me down by examples of others not sharing my values.

With this in mind, prior to responding I will restate your argument for clarity:

"You start off with a premise that free speech is under attack. Then, you want people to be somehow immune from the resulting social consequences."

Yes, free speech is under attack. No, I do not want people to be immune from criticism.

The flaw in your argument is that you are intentionally conflating social consequences and censorship attempts. That is, you are proposing that since censorship is a type of consequence, I am opposed to all consequences.

I do not want people to be immune from all consequences. For example criticism is a valid consequence. However, I do want people to be immune from actions intentionally designed to chill or prevent speech.

A hypothetical example to illustrate this point, if I state an idea that you find offensive, loudly criticizing me in response is fine. Trying to get me banned from the forum is not fine. The key difference is that criticism allows me to continue participating in the future discourse, and perhaps gives me opportunity to change my mind. Getting me banned simply silences my view without rebuking it.

How do you intend to compel private entities (such as this forum) to act in a manner which guarantees this immunity, yet does not curb their own freedom of expression (manifested in their desire to portray whatever expression they find appealing, such as banning you arbitrarily or pulling a Thanos or something).

What law would you enact to guarantee that I could violate KGB General Order 1 right here, and yet be immune from being censored on this exact forum?

You are fixating on "private entities". This is completely wrong way to think about it. If I open "private entity" cake shop and then refuse to do business with someone based on protected characteristic, such as race or sexual orientation, I violate the law. Do you find this in any way impossibly controversial? Such law is understood to be necessary, because we as society decided that alternatives are not a good way to run society. Alternatives like jailing heretics or tying up people of certain sexual orientation to chairs and tossing them off tall buildings. Societies that do that are not good places to live even for people in no danger of being tied to a chair or accused of heresy.

It is like that, but with speech.

You balance openness of digital space against motivation for censorship. Such system will never be perfect, but at least it would make censorship based on political, racial, or identity lines harder. Places that anyone can join (e.g. Facebook) should have most stringent protections for speech, because they are digital equivalent to a public square. Small private forums should protect speech the least, because they are digital equivalent of a living room.

Why do you think that just because freedom of speech issue has "on the computer" attached to it, good practices and norms that allowed Western society to prosper can be abandoned?

Ignoring your ceaseless attempts at straw manning away my question, what you're (still) suggesting is not protected by the laws of our country. What is your proposed law to cover the gap? Do you think there should be one, or do you just want people to agree with your values? If the latter, how is "immunity," a word with a real sense of finality, guaranteed in any way?

I admire you dedication to not practicing any kind of self-reflection.



I would like more people to agree with me on valuing free speech, but I don't think any value should be accepted unchallenged, or it becomes in danger of being dogmatic. Healthy society practices exchange of ideas, where all values are constantly challenged and evaluated and the best ones carried forward in a robust way. This process of self-correction malfunctions if freedom of speech is suppressed or diminished, but freedom of speech itself should not be exempt from such evaluation. I don't value freedom of speech without reasons, growing up in a Soviet Block I have seen first hand how society that lacks that value operates.



I think regulation of social media as a common carrier would be a good start. However, I don't pretend to have a silver bullet for this, and as you correctly pointed out there are nuances and considerations in any attempt. I just know that current situation is quickly deteriorating into illiberality, we already seeing downstream societal effects, and if we do nothing our children will be worse-off than we are.

Again, while I agree that social media companies are the closest we have to an emerging monopoly of speech, there is no monopoly yet, nor can I predict a clear pathway in which one will emerge and necessarily all others fall away. The only one really within striking distance of this is Facebook, and there is truly no compelling reason to use Facebook over the alternatives, especially in the context of speech. In my estimation, alternatives will always exist and a monopoly will never emerge. I believe monopoly is a requirement for regulation of speech. I would be happy to support regulation preventing monopoly.

But we're not really talking about a hypothetical social media monstrosity here, or regulating monopoly, that is the nuanced edge case. We're talking about regulating freedom of expression for ALL OTHER PRIVATE ENTITIES. This is the foundation of your complaint, that some of those entities are exercising free expression in a way you disagree with. You've identified what you believe is a problem, but you have no proposed solution, and it doesn't seem like you intend to ever produce a solution.

Here's my proposed solution, which happens to be status quo:

Guarantee freedom from governmental censorship, and let the market decide the value of the expressions of a private entity.

Here's an example of this working in a positive way: https://bcorporation.net/

Must we wait until disaster strikes before we start working on a solution? While there is no financial monopoly, there is an effective ideological conglomerate - Facebook, Google, and Twitter. These companies are very culturally monolithic (Californian Democrats) and happens to belong to a part of society that in recent years initiated slide into illiberality. For example, if most of decisions makers at these companies believe that speech is violence and that certain ideas must not be expressed, how could we hope to maintain freedom of speech for everyone?



Yes, I agree. However, effective ideological monopoly can be exerted by closely ideologically aligned entities.



This isn't a bad solution. Especially if it also touches payment processors. However, what if social media is a natural monopoly? Google+ failure indicates that this might be the case.



I would normally be in agreement with you except for three recent events:

- A prominent neo-nazi website, Stormfront, had its domain registration yanked. That is, registrars colluded to shut it down over objectionable speech.

- Robert Spencer was banned by Mastercard, making it impossible for him to accept payments. This is likely connected to the southern poverty law center blacklisting him. The same was done to Maaji Nawaz, with SPLC settling for $3+ mil.

- Alex Jones was deplatformed and banned by all tech companies, including Apple.

While all of these banned people/organizations deserve a healthy dose of criticism, their fate demonstrate that there is willingness and ability to effectively censor.

This tells me that there is too much market capture by ideological left in tech... and this is why I think censorship is a serious actual, and not just future potential, problem.

Also are you familiar with Gab.com and how it is under constant siege by payment processors, registrars, hosting providers and so on for refusal to censor? Gab supposed to be free market at work, satisfying demand that other companies, like Twitter, refuse to provide.

I'd already acknowledged your complaint, blowing more wind into it still does not provide solutions. In fact, you are proving my point by continuing to move the goalpost, I say you've moved it enough and for me now it's firmly planted at the uncrushable monopoly of the NY Review of Books

These companies are acting in accordance with the laws and their own interests. Those they have turned away have viable alternatives available to them. Suggesting that they don't is hyperbole.