this post was submitted on 10 Jan 2025
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Social media probably shouldn't, but the law should allow for a free for all. I personally think we should be closer to "free for all" than "completely locked down," but everyone has their preferred balance.
The creator of Lemmy is just one example. They remove a lot of content that isn't hateful, just against their political ideology. I used that as an example of a private social media website which does a lot of censoring, even though the creators are sort of, somehow, outwardly against censoring? So everyone is human is my point.
The article in question is about hate speech, not political dissent. Hate speech is pretty widely moderated away on Lemmy, and I think a majority of people here are cool with that. Some here are arguing semantics which is fair. Censoring is censoring which is the definition of censoring. I'm in the camp that if someone online is threatening another person or group of people, that should be hidden/removed.
Another perspective on the Lemmy situation is that, for example, I can sincerely say I believe free speech has merits while creating a book club where political discussion isn't allowed. Some would call that censorship, but restricting a certain community doesn't mean I approve of unconditional societal censorship. "Censorship", like many abstract concepts in the liberalist worldview, doesn't make sense to think of as a universal value, but rather in contexts, like you pointed out with hate speech removal being in line with the beliefs of most people on the main Lemmy instances.
There are some concepts, for example, that I think are fine to discuss in an academic situation but should be censored in public spaces, especially when it comes to explicitly genocidal ideologies like Nazism, or bigoted hate speech.
It's also by a politician with political power.
Do you know what the difference is between political dissent and hate speech? A clever application of the law, or a particularly persuasive lawyer. The law should be limited to prosecuting credible threats of violence or other speech intending to cause direct harm (e.g. repeated harassment, shouting "fire" in a crowded room, etc).
Overbearing private moderation is absolutely fine, since people can take their speech to another platform or create their own. Laws controlling speech is another matter entirely.
Lemmy devs are free to moderate their instances however they see fit, and I'm free to not engage with their instance.
It sounds like we agree, but I'm much less lawerly due to my lack of experience in that field.
No worries, I don't have any direct experience either, just a strong interest.
As a kid, I wanted to be a lawyer, but I was quite introverted so litigation wasn't appealing, so I decided to go into software patent law (I loved computers). While doing a CS undergrad, I learned how terrible software patents are, so I stuck to software dev.
I still really like the law, but now I'm more interested as a citizen knowing my rights instead of looking to prosecute the law.