My current view is that while I want to promote openness and free speech that can really only work in a context where the person exercising their speech feels some necessity to use it responsibly and in an honest way.
On the internet that takes a lot of self control because the social norms of every day life don’t always apply because:
- no one knows who you are
- there is not a human being right in front of you that you might feel empathy for
- there are no consequences to anything you say
- not all posts are even by humans.
With all these taken together there is a compelling argument that speech may need to be more highly regulated on the internet than in face to face interactions. However there are people with legitimate ( beliefs and ideas honestly held that they wish to discuss ) views that I worry are going to be silenced and further marginalized.
This is bad for society because if people get dismissed or pushed aside it just breeds resentment, distrust, and more misunderstanding. I think as we start defederating and making decisions we are setting up a dangerous situation where it becomes potentially easy to defederate for the wrong reasons.
For instance “we think they are being racist” or “they are spreading misinformation” could have unintended consequences. Some religions and communities might have beliefs that appear to be pseudoscience or even discrimination. However if these are honestly held beliefs that they are willing to engage in civil discourse around I don’t think it’s right to actually block them.
This is likely just the beginning of a much larger discussion so what are your thoughts?—
Nice phrasing
Sounds kind and charitable. It is not clear to me how universal this is given your opening paragraphs. I would agree that is they way it should be but I don’t think that reflects how it is. We need to react based on the actual reality we live in.
But what if there is a significant number of people who are just awful humans, or don’t have a thought for learning, or are not being open or honest etc.
I support the idea of engagement and discussion but let’s be honest there are people who aren’t interested in that. There are people who are racist. There are people who really do think you and I are going to hell and they are happy to know that. Sorry there is a reason I don’t associate with people like that in real life and I don’t want to on line either.
It is not my mission to discuss this kind of thing with all those people. Trolls and awful humans sometimes do need to be ignored. Otherwise we cannot have interesting or productive conversations with anyone.
I say, let those that want to engage and learn find a server or community with standards that we can tolerate. Any community that doesn’t have standards to keep reasonable order we should block.