Social media and villa players

[fruitvilla]

2 hours ago, nick76 said:

I’m also not in favour of people free to express themselves as a fundamental right if it is intentionally done in a hate speech manner designed to cause harm to others

If someone were to say "I hate Man United fans" would that count as hate speech? Or "I wish they would eff themselves"? You can see where I am going with this ... slowly escalating the rhetoric. It might not be a call for violence but it could certainly fuel the violence. There's going to be censor but who? For example if someone advocating for women's reproductive rights a call for violence?

[paul514]

54 minutes ago, fruitvilla said:

You did not answer my question  Paul ... should you be forced to lend me your soap box? Hyde Park is a public space? It would seem that your answer might be yes.

My box isn't a platform for speech its a box, any box or no box can be used. You are using a philosophical argument rather than a real one.

 

[paul514]

48 minutes ago, fruitvilla said:

If someone were to say "I hate Man United fans" would that count as hate speech? Or "I wish they would eff themselves"? You can see where I am going with this ... slowly escalating the rhetoric. It might not be a call for violence but it could certainly fuel the violence. There's going to be censor but who? For example if someone advocating for women's reproductive rights a call for violence?

This is an example in itself of the slippery slide because everything is open to campaigning and differering opinions.

[paul514]

By the way I think this conversation has moved completely away from football at this point.

[skarroki]

14 hours ago, nick76 said:

But it’s not just football, it’s all major sports, celebrities, those with differing views.  How is going to change?  Easy...laws that make liable platforms for hate speech...platforms will soon make adjustments.  If a guest on a tv show spouts hate speech and the tv show airs it they are in trouble, you can see some major liable cases (not for hate speech but speech) in America at the moment.  Start having some laws on social media and things might change.

I mean not even going as far as liable laws we have simple rules on this website that don’t impact generally accepted free speech or other laws.  Certain words if written are replaced with non offensive wording.  When we quote, we have to quote and put a link to the website (something I have incurred warning for when I forget or do something late at night in the heat of debate) and there are various other rules we all adhere to.  Surely major social media platforms can start utilising simple preventive measures without impacting generally accepted free speech. Preventative has to be a better solution than after the fact.

I agree it's not just football. I disagree strongly it's easy and we just need to introduce laws.

You can't make it a legal obligation to do anything online for 2 reasons in my opinion.

1. Because it's impossible to make people follow laws online, there are so many ways around it. If there are any laws people will find out how to avoid them, like paying for music/ TV series / movies / porn, you can pay for it or avoid paying equally easily. I am on Netflix and Disney accounts with 10+ others even though legally I shouldn't be, I also watch sky sports on a friend's grandparents account on my ps4 and my dad's bt sport. 

2. Making anything legal, like logging in with an ID, will drive people away to use other sites where you don't need to have an ID. and then everyone will be on those sites and the only place for celebrities to go and promote themselves and make money from their accounts is to go to those platforms instead and then we're back at square 1

If we're forced to have an ID in the UK by law then I'm sure people by the million will be downloading a freely available VPN which logs you into a country where you don't need an ID 

[nick76]

8 hours ago, paul514 said:

That’s fine but if you don’t allow ideas to flow then resentment builds and conflict follows.

but that's true the opposite way as well and thus the choice of two situations I prefer to protect the victims than the offenders. 

Allowing speech like racism brings forth resentment like the kick racism out of football over here and black lives matter in America.  You allowing people to hate speech further divides countries, communities and people. 

If a people wants to spout hate speech in their own home then fine but not on public forums/soapboxes. 

Again of the two situations that resentment builds I choose to protect the victims than the offenders....just as punching somebody in the face is wrong so is verbally inflicting hatred speech to somebody because of their skin colour or sexual orientation even more so when we have vulnerable people in the community both in adults and children,  The strong can shrug it off and have the ease to block it off but it's not so easy for the vulnerable.  Should they have to be hid away from all these major platforms because of this hate speech and that they dont have the chance to experience the world because they cant get access to it because some offender wants to spout hate speech of which 95% of the populations disagree with.

8 hours ago, paul514 said:

Sunlight is always the best disinfection

Not sure that's true, plus some virus' thrive in sunlight....QAnon for example, a political virus that gained legs and impacted America.  Anyway we were talking about hate speech and I'm not sure sun light is always the best disinfection.

[nick76]

10 hours ago, fruitvilla said:

If someone were to say "I hate Man United fans" would that count as hate speech? Or "I wish they would eff themselves"? You can see where I am going with this ... slowly escalating the rhetoric. It might not be a call for violence but it could certainly fuel the violence. There's going to be censor but who? For example if someone advocating for women's reproductive rights a call for violence?

Oh i completely agree there are massive grey areas and I really dont know the answer and I'm not sure anybody does because we are still having problems and disagreements on it but full free speech or completely limited speech like 1984 is not the answer. 

The current hate speech that some are enduring is surely not acceptable and some people solutions is to affect the victim not the offender.  How can the solution be the impact on the victim and not the offender.  Should women not go out in case they get raped but the rapists be free to roam the streets, we should stop the potential victim rather than the offender shouldnt we.  

Even Paul514 has a limit....he says shouldnt incite violence....it's valid in my view but seems to against his view of free speech.  Why shouldnt somebody be able to incite violence?  it's their fundamental right to say what they want.  Paul514 has put an arbitrary limit based on his values but why that.  How do you know what is inciting violence.  Trump's comments for example....some say they are inciting violence, some say they arent and what happened on Jan 6th wasnt his fault.  Who then makes the decision....again another grey area. 

Are the BLM protests and arranging them through social media platforms inciting violence? some people say yes, some say no.  But Paul514 line is arbitrary for his values yet he argues for free speech as a fundamental right yet denies that, why shouldnt somebody be able to incite violence, surely that is a right of theirs if they want in a free speech society.  Obviously I dont agree with that but we know from stuides that hate speech can have just as much damage on society as inciting violence so why is one ok and the other isnt. 

I dont know the answer of what should count as hate speech, people far cleverer than me can discuss that.  I'm not advocating for much control at all, I do believe in free speech but I believe living in a community, country and global environment there has to be some decency for the benefit of the wellbeing of that community. But in answer to your question, I dont know the answer of what counts and I'm not sure if I did that all others would agree with me but doing nothing seems not to be working.

Edited May 11, 2021 by nick76

[nick76]

6 hours ago, skarroki said:

I agree it's not just football. I disagree strongly it's easy and we just need to introduce laws.

You can't make it a legal obligation to do anything online for 2 reasons in my opinion.

1. Because it's impossible to make people follow laws online, there are so many ways around it. If there are any laws people will find out how to avoid them, like paying for music/ TV series / movies / porn, you can pay for it or avoid paying equally easily. I am on Netflix and Disney accounts with 10+ others even though legally I shouldn't be, I also watch sky sports on a friend's grandparents account on my ps4 and my dad's bt sport. 

2. Making anything legal, like logging in with an ID, will drive people away to use other sites where you don't need to have an ID. and then everyone will be on those sites and the only place for celebrities to go and promote themselves and make money from their accounts is to go to those platforms instead and then we're back at square 1

If we're forced to have an ID in the UK by law then I'm sure people by the million will be downloading a freely available VPN which logs you into a country where you don't need an ID 

It is easy, make social media companies liable for the content that is posted on their platform, you'll soon see a better control of hate speech on their platforms.  They started already with Ofcom in the UK at the end of last year able to fine Tech companies up to £18m or 10% of their global revenues whichever is higher for failing to comply.  A recent example linked to this fine criteria is Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and Twitter and otheres were to be required to establish clear terms and conditions which set out how they tackle content that is legal but could cause significant physical or psychological harm to to adults, such as misinformation about covid vaccines.  So the basis is there and you notice how those media companies tried to clear up on their platforms some misinformation, it wasnt brilliant but it was a step in the right direction.  Hate speech is an obvious next step under similar criteria but obviously a more grey area.

I'm not advocating ID, I'm advocating the media platforms be "more" liable for content on their platforms to oversights and also litigation by individuals or class actions.  It happens already for other things, I mean on Villatalk, we have to post in certain ways with certain links and restrictions because of laws and also oversight by the platform that Limpid has us on.  For example the Pictures thread in the Off topic section had to be cleared up/restarted because of restrictions.  That wasnt because of the users but because the controllers of the site were told they couldnt have that kind of content on.  In the wider picture you hit the controllers not the individual users because that's how things change so while not simple, it is easy law wise to enact laws on social media companies and create oversights because we are doing it and it was quick as the vaccine example i laid out above.

[nick76]

Anyway I'm out for a bit on this topic, I think I have said what I think.  I'll leave for others to discuss for a bit and see what they have to say.

[tomav84]

11 hours ago, paul514 said:

Yes, I get that point entirely. I don’t argue they don’t have the right to censor what is said on a platform they have created.

I want that right taken away from them so it is treated as a public space and ergo free speech is allowed short of direct incitement to violence.

As a complete side issue social media takes all the privileges of not being a publisher (editing what is said on the platform is what makes something a publication) whilst actually being a publisher.

out of curiosity, why is the direct incitement of violence where you draw the line? i'd be willing to bet that a racial slur to a black footballer would cause him greater offence and upset than if i DMed him saying "i'm going to kill you"