Reddit chief executive Steve Huffman has been accused of supporting racism in his commitment to free speech. After being questioned directly by one Reddit user, Mr Huffman said that racial slurs are not against the site's rules. Reddit user chlomyster had asked Mr Huffman for clarification of the firm's policies, questioning: " Is obvious open racism, including slurs, against Reddit's rules or not?" Huffman responded: "It's not."
I see nothing virtuous or noble in this. When did the freedom to abuse people based on the colour of their skin become something desirable ?
http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-43738032
Many Americans have this attitude. They think "freedom of speech" means agitation against an ethnic group is okay. It is still a crime where I live. Freedom of speech is not some supreme holy idea that should override every other consideration. Besides, people can still express their possible different ideas about various ethnic groups without using racial slurs or hostile language. For example, I can criticize gypsy culture if I don't like it, without using hate speech.
ReplyDeleteIt's definitely more overt in American culture, where freedom is held to be a virtue in itself under any circumstances; no-one goes around whooping for the joys of responsibility. But the same thing is at work in other democracies where "will of the people" is trotted out to be some kind of magical spell that doesn't have to respect reality, often, simultaneously and without any perception of irony, while telling the other side to shut up.
ReplyDeleteFreedom of speech is freedom to tell your mind to powers. Why it degenerated in the US into complete freedom to spew bullshit, lies, insults and language hostile to minorities, that's beyond me.
ReplyDeleteThe problems of tyranny are easy to discern and some measure of free speech goes a long way to curtailing them. But the problems of no restrictions at all are harder to sell : everyone wants to believe they know what's best for themselves, no-one wants to admit they can't manage their own affairs.
ReplyDeleteThe US sense of freedom is like their taste for rodeos.
ReplyDeleteI have to say, I do kind of agree with spez on this one. Being racist isn't nice or desirable but it's not illegal. Reddit aren't the thought police, although they do ban outright hate groups - which I totally agree they should be doing.
ReplyDeleteI do find some merit to the argument that if you ban everything bad, the bad people will just go elsewhere - when Reddit started banning the nastier hate groups, a small number of particularly horrible people left and set up their own hate echo-chamber (it's called voat and it's absolutely awful). If using one word gets you banned from Reddit, that's going to cause more people to fall into that echo chamber. People who could be steered back towards civil behaviour by social/peer pressure if they were allowed to remain in a more reasonable place.
My experience on reddit, where I do hang out quite a lot, is that racism at any level tends to get immediately confronted by users and board moderators, without the need for admin powers being deployed. Racism doesn't need banning because it's already "banned" socially. I don't really find the libertarian approach convincing in general but it does seem to mostly work in the case of a message board.
Also, they're one of the biggest websites in the world, managed by a team of like 150 people. What are they going to do? Auto-ban people if they use the wrong words? Because there's plenty of context in which a lot of them are perfectly legit. The hip-hop subs would be empty!
A related enigma: "The paradox of tolerance was described by Karl Popper in 1945. The paradox states that if a society is tolerant without limit, their ability to be tolerant will eventually be seized or destroyed by the intolerant."
ReplyDeletehttps://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance
Freedom of speech is only to protect unpopular speech.
ReplyDeleteI don't think racism is OK, just like I don't think it's OK to be rude in any way, but I don't support laws against it.
That said, Reddit is a private concern and requiring them to carry speech with which they don't agree would be a violation of their rights of expression and association. Similarly, if you don't like Reddit's policies in this regard, don't use Reddit.
Freedom of speech does not apply to Reddit and other media. They are in no way obliged to accept anything, they can set any rules they like and invite or deny any people of their choice, just like I can do in my private home.
ReplyDeleteFreedom of speech is the right to publish and to express opinions in public spaces, it does not guarantee the right to publish in other people's news papers and sites. And even then there are limitations to free speech, like defamation and hate speech, although to a smaller degree in the US than in other western democracies.
Reddit cannot hide behind "free speech", not on their own web site. They and they alone are responsible for the content.
There is not one right that trump all other rights, it's a delicate balance.
Event Horizon In accordance with the principle that all philosophy is a footnote to Plato... :)
ReplyDelete(More on this next week. I don't have time to respond to everything else right now).
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/sbp7joOc_QN1eRRfRchEPiMzvBo_SYCBjeNcWwbQkmeoWoC8bYMJlRUB0EuDT2o4mnLHZJDlFWsHwwmGUfWC4qTZ9w9zFC1C7y_c=s0