Slasher on 18/3/2019 at 19:19
I don't think these people were killed because they were repressing free speech, I think they were likely killed because they all happened to share something in common.
Nameless Voice on 18/3/2019 at 19:26
Free speech without freedom of consequence should mean that people who espouse such views should be publicly shunned.
Normal people shouldn't just stand by and say "well, they have the right to have those reprehensible views, because of free speech."; instead, they should say "Your freedom of speech has revealed you to be a reprehensible human being, and I will no longer have anything to do with you."
The most depressing thing, to me, is that otherwise-reasonable people will so often just let pass views that no sane person would agree with, in the name of freedom of speech. There's this notion that someone can be a perfectly fine person to deal with so long as you don't talk to them about their views, which just lets such people continue to believe that their views are normal/acceptable, and eventually leads to those beliefs spreading and becoming even more extreme.
The other thing is, why should the freedom of one person to publicly have hateful views be considered more important than the freedom of another person to go about their business without being subject to harassment, abuse, hatred, and worse, just because of their race/sex/culture/whatever?
Renzatic on 18/3/2019 at 22:00
Quote Posted by Nameless Voice
Normal people shouldn't just stand by and say "well, they have the right to have those reprehensible views, because of free speech."; instead, they should say "Your freedom of speech has revealed you to be a reprehensible human being, and I will no longer have anything to do with you."
That's the way it's normally expected to go. Freedom of speech, and freedom of association go hand in hand.
The problem is that things have been mixed up due to the rise of the internet. That everyone has a right to scream diatribes against anyone they want on Facebook, Twitter, et al. without repercussion because they have as much right to the soapbox as anyone else, and any form of censorship on this front all but silences their right to speak their mind.
The thing they don't understand is that the 1st Amendment only guarantees you the right to speak your mind without fear of government reprisal. This is why general hate speech isn't against the law here in the US. This doesn't apply to privately owned services, owned by people who have just as many rights as everyone else. When it comes to the rights of one individual against another, then it defaults to property rights, which beat all.
You can scream about the latest conspiracy theories of the day, blame all the ills of society on the Jews, Muslims, and Mexicans, and the state can't legally do anything about it. It's a natural right that cannot be revoked. But if you're screaming these things on private property, then you're out of luck, because your right to shout inanities don't override the rights of a property owner to manage what he owns as he sees fit. If he wants you gone, you're legally obligated to go.
Don't like it? Tough titty. Buy your own land, or take to the streets.
heywood on 18/3/2019 at 22:54
How the hell did this turn into a debate about free speech?
Anyway...
My point is that we don't know much about Tarrant yet besides what he wrote in his manifesto and spoke in his video, which seem to be purposefully outrageous and made to echo through social media circles. He says his inspiration was Anders Breivik. If so, he's likely a sociopath and his real ambition is to be infamous. Until we have a more complete picture, it seems premature to point fingers of blame at anybody other than Tarrant himself. It seems to me like he's trying to push on a bunch of hot buttons at once and stir up division, so if we let this tragedy inspire us to fight each other over religion, immigration, politics, or whatever, then we're playing by his script.
Pyrian on 18/3/2019 at 23:10
Quote Posted by heywood
How the hell did this turn into a debate about free speech?
Someone, uh,
exercised it.
Quote Posted by heywood
Until we have a more complete picture, it seems premature to point fingers of blame at anybody other than Tarrant himself.
Sure, sure. It's not like we have some kind of
shortage of mass shootings to talk about. Let's wait until the next mass shooting, and
then talk about this one! ...Oh, whoops, I guess its time.
Renzatic on 18/3/2019 at 23:27
Quote Posted by heywood
How the hell did this turn into a debate about free speech?
Cuz every situation like this, especially ones that started after someone latched onto a dangerous fringe cause, end up stirring up the free speech and gun right discussions. It's basically an extension of us asking what enabled it, what we can do to prevent it from happening again, and how far we should go in doing so.
Quote:
It seems to me like he's trying to push on a bunch of hot buttons at once and stir up division, so if we let this tragedy inspire us to fight each other over religion, immigration, politics, or whatever, then we're playing by his script.
I think that's about it. His manifesto was designed to get up everyone's craw. He may have been an anti-immigrant white supremacist, but he went out of his way to hit all the right notes in his manifesto to maximize the rage incurred from his actions. It's given so many people so much to talk about.
Renzatic on 18/3/2019 at 23:29
Quote Posted by Pyrian
Sure, sure. It's not like we have some kind of
shortage of mass shootings to talk about. Let's wait until the next mass shooting, and
then talk about this one! ...Oh, whoops, I guess its time.
Haywood isn't say we shouldn't talk about it. We very much should. We just shouldn't go fucko about it.
Tocky on 19/3/2019 at 01:23
Speaking of free speech and property rights though, NPR had an interesting program on You Tube algorithms virtually working as de facto indoctrination for nuts like the NZ killer. Each video links to others of it's ilk and if your penchant is for more ranting hate then each video you watch will get you worse and worse until you are into full on white nationalism or jihad or whatever brand of nutso you are attracted to. It's true that was never the aim of You Tube but you can't deny that it can be a sort of self radicalization.
Ironically I can't seem to find it on You Tube. Ah. It was a New York Times shared broadcast. You have to go through a segment on the shootings before it kicks in at about 8:05 or just skip to then of course. Linky- (
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/18/podcasts/the-daily/new-zealand-mosque-shooting.html) https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/18/podcasts/the-daily/new-zealand-mosque-shooting.html
Nameless Voice on 19/3/2019 at 01:42
I think I've linked it before elsewhere, but there was a TED talk from a few years ago about how YouTube's algorithms appear to intentionally suggest to you more extreme video recommendations after each video you watch, because they think you are more likely to keep watching (and so watch more ads) if they do this, which, as Tocky said, can help to indoctrinate nutcases who are watching certain types of videos.
(The rest of the talk isn't really relevant to this discussion, though the link is (
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iFTWM7HV2UI) here in case anyone wants it. And of course I'm linking that on YouTube.)
icemann on 19/3/2019 at 03:36
Quote Posted by Renzatic
Cuz every situation like this, especially ones that started after someone latched onto a dangerous fringe cause, end up stirring up the free speech and gun right discussions.
The difference here being that this happened in New Zealand. So the right to guns isn't there (just as in Australia). Yesterday the NZ government set out to enact similar gun laws to what the Australian government put in place so that massacres like that cannot happen again.
If this had happened in the US, there'd be a lot of protests but nothing would change.
As for right to free speech stuff, as much as I was grr about Purg posting that video, I'm completely on the side of free speech as that is what democracy is all about, and we need to be able to debate things rather than just keep them all forbidden where they fester and turn into something far more vile.
