Philosophy Discussion Forums

Sure. And if the cinema gave such a person two warnings in cases where there was demonstrably no fire, then after the third such false alarm they would be reasonably justified in taking action.

Those warnings being about ensuring that one's beliefs are well-founded before acting on them.

But that doesn't seem to map very easily to the current situation. Are the would-be censors demonstrating to everyone's satisfaction that there is no fire, and issuing personal warnings ?

I think censors just follow policy and don't much care about innocence, or even irony, so it seems. It is often just AI picking key terms. Consider the non-viewing of the Fawlty Towers program, The Germans. The show was mindlessly penalised for lampooning racism.

In the end, owners have the right to decide how their property is used, albeit with some limitations.

In the light of the recent debate surrounding twitter and whether it has the right to do censor whoever it likes because it is a private company, I found this interesting article online:

https://quillette.com/2022/11/28/ending ... n-twitter/

[...]private companies cannot legally (and should not morally) exclude customers, clients, or users from protected categories. Equalities law ensures non-discrimination in the provision of public goods and services.

Once we think about things this way, it becomes clear that Twitter cannot do anything it likes, and yet it has been doing exactly that. Twitter has been discriminating on the basis of political and philosophical beliefs, obscuring its censorship of those who do not share its far-left views by declaring those views “hateful conduct.”

In my view, Musk is correct when he describes Twitter as the “de facto public town square,” and says that “failing to adhere to free speech principles fundamentally undermines democracy.” The “de facto” part is important. Twitter has become the place where people from all around the world go to discuss important issues, both domestic and international. It’s not that because people use it for this purpose, the platform suddenly has obligations to maintain, and perhaps even strengthen, that purpose. If Musk decides to shut Twitter down, of course he may do so. What is important is that Twitter not discriminate in the provision of its services. [...] Twitter’s service is to offer people a profile from which to tweet and interact with other users. It must offer this service in a way that upholds equalities law.

I think Twitter's importance is greatly overrated. I've seldom used it and don't feel I am missing out. I am not a fan of extreme character limits. The format discourages meaningful debate and encourages short, cheap snipes.

If Elon Musk truly wants Twitter to contribute meaningfully to society, he would quadruple the character limit. If he does not fix this fundamental flaw, then any measure he takes is just window dressing and grandstanding.

[...]private companies cannot legally (and should not morally) exclude customers, clients, or users from protected categories. Equalities law ensures non-discrimination in the provision of public goods and services.

It's always worrying when people conflate legal and moral. The fact that certain countries in the 21st century have non-discrimination laws says exactly nothing about morality. In just the same way that certain countries' discrimination laws in the 20th century say exactly nothing about morality.

The temptation to ascribe moral weight to laws that one agrees with seems just irresistible. But it ain't necessarily so. Morality knows no "protected categories".

Sy Borg wrote: ↑November 29th, 2022, 8:22 pm I think Twitter's importance is greatly overrated. I've seldom used it and don't feel I am missing out. I am not a fan of extreme character limits. The format discourages meaningful debate and encourages short, cheap snipes.

I use it a lot. Why you say about character limits is certainly true in some cases. But in others, the limit spurs creativity, like the haiku format does.

A very interesting fact has been revealed lately about the Government in the UK: Army’s ‘information warfare’ unit monitored Covid lockdown critics.

The Army’s “information warfare” unit monitored Covid lockdown critics during the pandemic, the Government has revealed.

The 77th Brigade, a specialist unit set up to counter disinformation and other online activity deemed harmful to the UK, assisted other government units in the task.

Publicly available social media posts were scrutinised for accuracy and challenged if the Government felt information presented to the public was incorrect, inaccurate or deliberately misleading.

The Government made the admission in response to an article in the Mail on Sunday, based on reports from an anonymous Army whistleblower and documents obtained by the civil liberties group Big Brother Watch.

The Army whistleblower told the Mail on Sunday: “It is quite obvious that our activities resulted in the monitoring of the UK population ... monitoring the social media posts of ordinary, scared people”.

[...]

The Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport (DCMS) is in charge of the Government’s counter-disinformation strategy.

During the pandemic however, the Government’s response to harmful online messaging was largely conducted through three separate units brought together for the duration of the national emergency.

The Counter Disinformation Unit, a part of DCMS, searched for content deemed harmful to the UK which was then flagged to social media platforms.

The Cabinet Office’s Rapid Response Unit, launched in March 2020, was designed to identify and counter social media posts and other commentary from purported experts issuing dangerous misinformation, as well as phishing scams run by criminal fraudsters.

When false narratives were identified, the Government issued direct rebuttals on social media to ensure public health campaigns were only promoted through reliable sources.

The unit, which has since been disbanded, played a central role in tackling misinformation online during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Specialists from the Army’s 77th Brigade, assisted the other government departments during the pandemic.

Initially created as a counter to foreign threats from places like Russia and Isis, it doesn't really surprise me that it's since been turned onto our own people, "for the greater good" of course.

And of course, there's also been The Twitter Files an interesting reveal about the inner workings of Twitter. It's interesting how these have been largely ignored by the left wing media, no doubt in part because of who the source of this information is (Elon Musk). Probably the most disturbing thing to come out of this is the extent to which the FBI pressured Twitter to take action of what they deemed to be "misinformation".

I think that no matter how much you dislike the concept of misinformation, we can't get away from the fact that no body can be trusted with the power to restrict it, or to put it another way, the power to determine what is truth and what is not.

Egg, there was a pandemic. ICUs were being overrun, with key staff burning out or becoming sick themselves. Many were dying. It was a national security issue, so the FBI was within its rights in this case IMO. It was a matter of public safety, and there was many unknowns. The real concern is that authorities (and others) are no doubt also interfering in other issues.

In today's society, almost everyone is interfering with almost everyone else. People are getting in each others' way because we fell into a lifestyle of cramming together like sardines. As our populations grow, interests clash ever more. In this hyper-competitive environment, power players have strong motives to engage in shady behind-the-scenes interference. And they do, all the time (even more than in the past).

It's not a left/right issue. It's a population and societal organisation issue.

I like that Musk has taken over Twitter (the man is very unfairly derided - he is the best of the billionaires IMO). Given how cynically the mainstream media has played the people for so long, at least there is one place where censored information can always be aired. Now the risk is that so many radicals and undisciplined fools flock to this new free space that good information is buried in crap. Thus, the regular people who would otherwise be able to learn what the MM hides are driven away.

What is misinformation? Basically any subjective spin on objective data can be misinformation. Essentially the entire litigation arm of the legal profession and the entire field of marketing would evaporate tomorrow if misinformation was made illegal today.

To my mind prohibiting misinformation is more potentially important now since technology has made the appearance of counterfeit data increasingly more and more difficult to discern from real data.

Think of real data like real legal tender. Back in the day it was very difficult to make counterfeit bills and their quality was low, thus if a bill passed a cursory inspection, it was highly likely to be real. With the advent of copy and printer tech, high skill is no longer required to produce decent fakes. And while it is possible to detect the difference between real and counterfeit bills, a cursory inspection is no longer sufficient to tell the difference.

Sy Borg wrote: ↑February 5th, 2023, 6:49 pmEgg, there was a pandemic. ICUs were being overrun, with key staff burning out or becoming sick themselves. Many were dying. It was a national security issue, so the FBI was within its rights in this case IMO. It was a matter of public safety, and there was many unknowns.

The problem with this view is that many things were labelled as mis-information, or people as spreaders of misinformation when they weren't. They were just swept up with the "tide", collateral damage in the war against misinformation. Furthermore, some of the misinformation itself came from the authorities, the people we were supposed to trust. And lastly, emergency situations like these are always used by governments to give themselves more power and to reduce individual freedoms and they don't row them back so easily.

Fried Egg wrote: ↑February 6th, 2023, 2:27 am

Sy Borg wrote: ↑February 5th, 2023, 6:49 pmEgg, there was a pandemic. ICUs were being overrun, with key staff burning out or becoming sick themselves. Many were dying. It was a national security issue, so the FBI was within its rights in this case IMO. It was a matter of public safety, and there was many unknowns.

The problem with this view is that many things were labelled as mis-information, or people as spreaders of misinformation when they weren't. They were just swept up with the "tide", collateral damage in the war against misinformation. Furthermore, some of the misinformation itself came from the authorities, the people we were supposed to trust. And lastly, emergency situations like these are always used by governments to give themselves more power and to reduce individual freedoms and they don't row them back so easily.

Then there's a problem, because governments need to be able to act in emergency situation. However, this has been eroded by loss of trust after revelations that, yes, the virus would have come from the laboratory and that the US and China had a joint operation to mutate viruses. Also, a dishonest approach to the vaccines, taking the voices of those who were harmed by them. While there's an understandable fear that people might focus on the small percentage of people severely impacted and fail to be vaccinated, that manipulation made it harder for people to make informed decisions.

What do you guys think about the "Westminster Declaration"? (westminsterdeclaration[dot]org)

The first few paragraphs:

We write as journalists, artists, authors, activists, technologists, and academics to warn of increasing international censorship that threatens to erode centuries-old democratic norms.

Coming from the left, right, and centre, we are united by our commitment to universal human rights and freedom of speech, and we are all deeply concerned about attempts to label protected speech as ‘misinformation,’ ‘disinformation,’ and other ill-defined terms.

This abuse of these terms has resulted in the censorship of ordinary people, journalists, and dissidents in countries all over the world.

Such interference with the right to free speech suppresses valid discussion about matters of urgent public interest, and undermines the foundational principles of representative democracy.

Seems like a lot of people are getting pretty worried with the way things are going with regards to free speech...

Fried Egg wrote: ↑November 19th, 2023, 8:55 am What do you guys think about the "Westminster Declaration"? (westminsterdeclaration[dot]org)

The first few paragraphs:

We write as journalists, artists, authors, activists, technologists, and academics to warn of increasing international censorship that threatens to erode centuries-old democratic norms.

Coming from the left, right, and centre, we are united by our commitment to universal human rights and freedom of speech, and we are all deeply concerned about attempts to label protected speech as ‘misinformation,’ ‘disinformation,’ and other ill-defined terms.

This abuse of these terms has resulted in the censorship of ordinary people, journalists, and dissidents in countries all over the world.

Such interference with the right to free speech suppresses valid discussion about matters of urgent public interest, and undermines the foundational principles of representative democracy.

Seems like a lot of people are getting pretty worried with the way things are going with regards to free speech...

I think this can be answered with an appeal to balance and a Middle Path. There never has been 'freedom of speech' in human societies, not even in America. Some sorts or styles of speech are simply not permitted, and this has always been the case. But that doesn't detract from the importance of the idea of free speech, whose recommending features are clear and obvious.

The answer to this question is one of balance — how far does/should free speech go? Many of us differ on the details, but the answer is balance. Setting the threshold, beyond which freedom of speech is no longer considered useful and valuable — that is the hard part of the answer.

The appeal to "balance" seems to mean that you consider your own judgment (? as to where the balance of advantage to society lies ?) to be better than following any principle that you could state...