Forum Philosophy Update

AutSider was “murdered” and then taken to Valhalla(KT) by Lyssa. :evilfun:

It’s not novel; it’s repetitive: viewtopic.php?f=3&t=193203&start=100#p2677355


The person who was murdered is not the one who is being recompensed as they have no consciousness of anything; the one who is avenged is the community for the loss of the person. Therefore banishment is equivalent to murder from the perspective of the community and that’s the only perspective that matters. Morality regards the community because a person cannot be immoral to their self. An offense against the community is an immoral act.


You forgot, again: viewtopic.php?f=3&t=193203&start=100#p2677090

Taken from here: viewtopic.php?f=3&t=193203&start=75#p2677036

[i][b]The court pointed out that the more an owner opens his property up to the public in general, the more his rights are circumscribed by the statutory and constitutional rights of those who are invited in.

Accordingly, the Court held that the property rights of a private entity are not sufficient to justify the restriction of a community of citizens’ fundamental rights and liberties.

In New Jersey, two lower courts had upheld the malls’ contention that they could limit noncommercial activity on their private property. But today the State Supreme Court sided with the protesters who had argued that a mall constitutes a modern-day Main Street.[/b][/i]

That’s what this place is… a modern day main street / town hall. What you’ve created is a sounding board viewable to the public wherein you have the ability to censor what the public can view.


That’s only because the issue hasn’t been before the courts yet. What is law is a matter of opinion and persuasion of the judges, and, is not necessarily consistent with what is right. At one time it was perfectly legal to commit all sorts of heinous acts.

They expressed something that you didn’t like. I mean, they weren’t peddling penis pills.

How can speech-maximizing reasons be unconnected to expression of views? Makes no sense.

Most likely you’re saying it’s a popularity contest wherein the number of people offended by speech determines what speech is allowed such that if, for example, the board had a liberal bias by virtue of membership-number then bans would favor the conservatives. So if we recruit some white nationalists to tip the balance of the population in their favor, then you wouldn’t have a problem with Autsider?

If you don’t agree with Autsider, why would you not give a fool the opportunity to make a fool of himself? Do you think he’s going to win people over with the suggestion of tossing people into ovens? When has prohibition ever succeeded?

Serindipper, think for a moment about why habitual offender laws exist. They do so for a reason.

Also, it’s not murder to tell someone that they can’t speak in a certain place. To say that it is, is without a doubt a significant stretch of any conventional definition of murder, and even a stretch as a metaphor. Murder is final, and prevents a person from being an agent in any way whatsoever, forever. To kick someone out of a bar is nothing like that at all.

Serendipper, you are right, I did forget about Marsh, again. Pesky Marsh. But as I said last time, I don’t think it’s dispositive, and I think a web forum can be easily distinguished from a company town.

I found a more recent case that’s more on point, e-Ventures v. Google, in which Google’s delisting of a website for violation of its policies was held found to be protected by the First amendment. From the order granting summary judgement for Google:

That seems pretty close to what’s going on here, right? Granted, it’s a district court case, but its matches other similar district court cases (see Zhang v. Baidu, Search King v. Google. Zhang is particularly noteworthy for not only upholding Baidu’s right to filter search results, but their right to do so for overtly political reasons).

First, note that “speech-maximizing” isn’t about quantity. If, upon finishing this post, I copy and paste the text three or four times to increase the length, I haven’t said anything more.

Next, note that certain forms of speech effectively silence other forms. The heckler’s veto is the classic example: if I shout loudly enough, I can prevent you from expressing yourself. That is true regardless of the contents of my shouting.

In the context of a forum, there’s no shouting, but there are manners of participation, unrelated to the ideas being expressed, that reduce the amount of speech that results from them. Since threads are conversations, posts shape what follows them, and participation in a thread that erodes the intellectual content of the conversation reduces the amount of speech the conversations contain.

These are the speech-maximizing reasons unconnected to the views the user holds or expresses. Regardless of viewpoint, we should seek to reduce participation that drags down conversation and replaces content with flames. Banning Autsider and Trixie did that.

They don’t exist in nature. If I habitually fall off a ladder, gravity will not increase the punishment.

I did not make that decree. It is murder to eternally banish someone.

Permaban. Hello :confusion-shrug:

That isn’t final. Plus, I could follow them to a new bar if I chose to. Plus, a bar is not a public sounding board for inherent political discussion that is viewable to the entire world.

In what way? It’s public as anyone can signup. It’s viewable to the public since it appears in search engines. It’s political in nature.

Now maybe if this were a motorcycle board, it could be interpreted differently. Or maybe if membership were by invitation, it may be different. Or maybe if it were not visible on search engines, it may be different. Regardless of any court decisions made by political appointment with agenda, I fail to see the reasoning of how this site is not at least as public, if not more-so, than a company town.

I accept that, but the problem is the fairness doctrine is gone. Without the fairness doctrine, yes, it’s perfectly legal for a newspaper to present a one-sided political view, but that doesn’t mean it’s fair or right. It just means that the judges were neutered in the google case and had no legal means to arrive at any other decision, unfortunately. What is right and fair is the basis on which I appeal to you.

The fairness doctrine:

Justice White also explains that it is the rights of the viewers and listeners that is the most important, not the rights of the broadcasters.The Court did not see how the Fairness Doctrine went against the First Amendments goal of creating an informed public. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Lion_ … _the_Court

Revocation:

[i]In Red Lion Broadcasting Co. v. FCC, 395 U.S. 367 (1969), the U.S. Supreme Court upheld (by a vote of 8-0) the constitutionality of the Fairness Doctrine in a case of an on-air personal attack, in response to challenges that the doctrine violated the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

In 1985, under FCC Chairman Mark S. Fowler, a communications attorney who had served on Ronald Reagan’s presidential campaign staff in 1976 and 1980, the FCC released a report stating that the doctrine hurt the public interest and violated free speech rights guaranteed by the First Amendment.

In 1986, the 99th Congress directed the FCC to examine alternatives to the Fairness Doctrine and to submit a report to Congress on the subject.[16]

In August 1987, under FCC Chairman Dennis R. Patrick, the FCC abolished the doctrine by a 4-0 vote, in the Syracuse Peace Council decision, which was upheld by a panel of the Appeals Court for the D.C. Circuit in February 1989, though the Court stated in their decision that they made “that determination without reaching the constitutional issue.”[17] The FCC suggested in Syracuse Peace Council that because of the many media voices in the marketplace, the doctrine be deemed unconstitutional.[/i] en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairness_Doctrine

Reagan undermined an 8-0 supreme court decision because he was in favor of business over the people, which included his trickle-down nonsense. That’s why google has grown into the monster that it is with its carte blanche ability to reshape society according to the perverted wishes of it’s “progressive” controllers.

It still isn’t clear what you mean by “speech-maximization.” If you say you want more speech that isn’t repetitive nonsense, then you cannot achieve than by constructing an echochamber. You need conflict in order to have discussion. You need Autsider. And you need me because without me, this discussion would not be happening. This is what is meant by “love your enemies.” You need them in order for yourself to manifest.

Shouting isn’t a property of message boards and we can ignore whomever we choose. And there is a difference between purposeful disruption and expression of political view. If I’m posting meaningless crap just to take up space and disrupt the functioning of the board, then that force warrants force, but the expression of an opinion, vile or not, is not forceful.

I understand as well as anyone because I left for just such a reason, but it wasn’t due to expression of an ideology, but expression of unethical refusal to admit a point and that is cheating. If someone wants to assert that jews should be tossed into ovens, then fine, let’s talk about it, but when they clam-up and refuse to concede a point, then I want to leave. What matters is being reasonable and fair, not having an opinion.

Concerning manners of participation, it takes two to tango. Where Ultimate Philosophy was banned, UrGod was just as much at fault for being a provocation and it should be the job of a moderator to moderate the situation. UrGod got under my skin too, but I handled it differently. Why Ultimate Philosophy was so angry is something I wanted to observe longer, but I’m denied that opportunity because of the existence of UrGod and a banishment policy.

Why? Who leaves because of flames? And if they leave, then what does banning do differently? And who says flames do not have content? All you’ve accomplished is a personal satisfaction from having slaughtered someone who you didn’t like, which, coincidentally and ironically, reduced the content of the board. Did not the Roman Colosseum draw crowds because of flames? People love to watch fights.

After you’ve selectively bred your echochamber, this place is going to be mighty boring lol

Everything that exists exists in nature, so the first part literally makes no sense. Don’t be acting fallacious. It’s just tacky. Also, if you don’t think that falling off a ladder repeatedly will lead to increasing discomfort, then I think you should fall off a ladder repeatedly and get back to me about it. Banning someone from a single website is also not final. Like bars, there are plenty of them. Getting kicked out of a bar does not remove the possibility that one could take their bullshit elsewhere, like say…another bar and continue on as they were. You’ve got to think about whether you’re actually being reasonable here, or if you’re just making a big stretch with a bunch of hyperbole to try and advocate for something that you feel strongly about. It’s ok to have strong feelings and to advocate for them, but you’re doing a shitty job of that here.

Sure, there are similarities, but there are also plenty of relevant differences. No one lives here. No one has their domicile at ILP. No one even works here. The court didn’t even extend Marsh to shopping malls (Lloyd v. Tanner), the difference between a private town and private shopping center being sufficient to distinguish how the First Amendment applies.

The Fairness Doctrine applied to broadcast media, an industry heavily controlled by the federal government, which still owns all the airwaves and only licenses their use to private companies. Red Lion expressly relied on the limited availability of broadcast radio spectrum. The reasoning does not apply to the internet, and the Fairness Doctrine likely would not have been upheld in that context. It’s trivially easy to make a competing forum if a user doesn’t like the rules here or is banned, as evidenced by the fact that ILP has spun off a half dozen other forums started and frequented by disgruntled or banned members.

Nor did the court’s ruling say that the government must or even should maintain the Fairness Doctrine, because that isn’t the court’s place. Rather, it held that the Fairness Doctrine was a permitted exception to the First Amendment in the context of broadcast radio.

I agree, this is the same point that I have been making, and it is the reason why Autsider and Trixie were banned. Holding or advocating for distasteful views should not get a person banned, I agree, but neither does it get them a free pass to also post disruptively.

:-k

You’re right that the distinction between the natural and artificial is an artificial distinction, but we’ve created for ourselves these distinct societies and communities by defining a distinction between what is natural and artificial; for instance, that Carleas and Autsider actually exist and that "right and “wrong” actually exist, which are manifested by “rules” that are complete abstractions. Therefore, within the confines of that universe, there is a distinction by definition.

If you want to argue that banning is a natural phenomenon, then I’ll argue there are no rules in nature and therefore never a reason to be banned. You can’t have your cake and eat it too.

Mr Unreasonable :obscene-buttred: :laughing:

Cause and effect are not the same. Increasing punishment is not the same as increasing discomfort due to equivalent punishment.

I think you should brush up on your logic :techie-studyinggray:

Hey Carleas, did you know your ban is not final?

Fine. Kindly point me to where Autsider went and I’ll go observe.

Well at least I’m doing a job.

I will have to study and think on that before dispatching a reply, but…

How were they being disruptive? Unless such evidence has been deleted, I’ve not seen what constitutes forceful disruption and that leaves only their expression of “distasteful views” to underpin “disruption”.

For instance if I were to repetitively spam the board, somewhat like a ddos attack, that would be a forceful disruption. If my intention were to interfere with the functioning of the board, then that would be forceful disruption. But to simply state an opinion, that’s not forceful since anyone can choose to ignore and disengage from that person.

Coincidentally, the Google v Damore case is reminiscent of the ILP v Autsider/Trixie case in that Google fired/banned someone for expression of views that were interpreted as being “disruptive”. theverge.com/2018/2/16/1702 … rimination

So who gets nipped? The ones offending or the ones taking offense? Ah, the ones who don’t support the diversity narrative, I see. :laughing:

Paraphrased as, “You’re cloaking facts, er, I mean, comments with scientific references and analysis that trespass on our preconceived dogmas so you’re fired!” Nevermind that google is cloaking the censorship of scientific analysis with “disruptive behavior”. What’s being disrupted is the pigeonholing of women into roles they don’t want while denying men opportunities in order to cater to silicon valley’s philosophical wetdream of transforming America into a modern day Sodom and Gomorrah where the metaphorical devil is bummed for lack of anything productive to do :imp:

Might be too obvious to prove :frowning:

theverge.com/2018/1/19/1691 … emo-firing

Hmm… where have I heard that before :-k

Oh yeah :smiley:

You’re a good sport, Carleas; a very fair-minded and well-intentioned individual whose demeanor should be a role model for everyone in debate.

Those are trivial differences that have no relevance to the publicity of the establishment. I suppose I should have asked “In what meaningful way?” But I didn’t think I had to lol.

I’m sure the 1994 NJ supreme court took that 1972 Tanner decision into consideration when they decided 4-3 that “malls must allow access to protesters who want to distribute leaflets on social issues.” nytimes.com/1994/12/21/nyreg … ml?mcubz=1

Declaring that shopping malls have replaced the parks and squares that were “traditionally the home of free speech,”

And now that malls are vacant, social media is next… and in particular, this place.

And that takes us back to Marsh in that: the more an owner opens his property up to the public in general, the more his rights are circumscribed by the statutory and constitutional rights of those who are invited in.

Difference? Aren’t you broadcasting? Publicly?

Relevance?

Who owns the internet? And why does it matter concerning the rights of speech? The audience is public, so ownership is beside the point.

That’s why it was struck down; because there was ample competition. The problem is obvious, as pointed out by Trump with his Fake News campaign in that ALL the media are biased… CNN, NBC, MSNBC, CBS, CNBC, everyone except maybe Fox to some degree and the internet, which is involved in the same problem because google, twitter, facebook, et al are all just as biased as the mainstream media. So the competition-reasoning doesn’t work since fairness is still absent and, through monopoly, the public is presented with a one-sided view.

I’m not sure if it’s trivially easy or not, since I’ve no clue how, but to arise to the popularity of twitter, youtube, and google isn’t a matter of trivia, even though that doesn’t apply to ILP, per se, but is a deeper resultant of the ethical slippery slope that begins with ILP.

Well, yeah, the courts aren’t legislators, but only interpreters of legislation. All they can do is work within the existing legislation, which is mutually exclusive from what is right/wrong, ethical/unethical.

What matters is the political nature of the site coupled with the accessibility to the public at large that differentiates it from a pub where you can boot people out for any reason you want because a pub is your own private establishment where the goings-on aren’t plastered all over the internet under the guise of “philosophy” for added credence. Even a mall or a state park is less public than ILP. Even the public library is less public, for crying out loud :laughing: Even prison inmates can come here, but not go to the library or a park. If any place in the universe is public, ILP is it. :confusion-shrug:

I think it does make sense to leave up posts that led to banning. 1) this makes it clear what causes banning or gives concrete examples which may or may not be clear. It is transparent. We see what led to actions and justifications for the actions are clearer, at least. 2) It shows that we can tolerate information, if not certain kinds of behavior. We are adults. We have all seen____________shit. Fill in the blank for whatever upsets you - decadence, racism, threats, smut, insults…We’ve all seen it. So having it visible is not a problem. Child porn, ok, remove it, fine. But text, leave it up. I suppose someone’s IRL address and phone number type stuff should also be hidden. But otherwise, leave it up, perhaps in its own thread with other this led to banned posts. There are patterns of interaction that I can imagine wanting to ban. I don’t mind someone throwing someone out of a library if they walk around repeatedly asking everyone if they can suck his dick.

But I think it is better if things don’t just disappear.

He is at KTS.
knowthyself.forumotion.net/

You don’t think that personal insults directed at other posters are disruptive?
As in this post :

Do people come to a philosophy forum to be insulted? They will put up with it for a while and then leave. The discussion ends because that sort of posting discourages participation.
And really that’s the goal of the insulter … to silence others.

So if you put a webcam into your pub and stream it to the internet, you automatically lose control over what happens inside your own establishment? You can no longer eject them for improper behavior? That seems strange. It looks like you are allowed to give a forum but you are not allowed to take it away, even if they break the rules and conditions under which you gave them a forum in the first place. Doesn’t the participant/user have any responsibilities/obligations?

And now it is you who forget:
ilovephilosophy.com/viewtopi … 3#p2682213
ilovephilosophy.com/viewtopi … 3#p2682519

That is not why anyone was banned.

The speech clause in the New Jersey Constitution is broader than that in the US Constitution. Both prohibit laws that restrict the freedom of speech, but New Jersey’s also provides for a positive right: “Every person may freely speak, write and publish his sentiments on all subjects…” There is not positive right to speech in the US Constitution.

No. Red Lion was specifically about the use of broadcast radio spectrum (compare Miami Herald v. Tornillo, rejecting the fairness doctrine as applied to newspapers).

ILP does not broadcast in the radio spectrum, or any spectrum for that matter.

Government ownership matters because the First Amendment primarily and most clearly restricts government.

Audience doesn’t matter (see again Tornillo). Indeed, it would completely pervert the purpose of the First Amendment if it disappeared once you started speaking to too many people.

  1. This is a policy argument, not a legal argument.
  2. Monopoly is the wrong word. People sort themselves and consume partisan media, not because any particular news outlet has a monopoly, but because people like to hear news that affirms their worldview.
  3. This has existed since the earliest days of the Republic, in the form of openly partisan newspapers.

Your argument is stronger as applied to any website that gets any significant portion of internet traffic, but as the Google and Baidu cases show, that isn’t dispositive.

But this too feels like a policy argument rather than a legal argument. Which is fine, if you want to concede the legal point that there is little doubt that banning someone is protected by the First Amendment, we can return to the policy discussion.

I agree, and in the links above I’ve linked to the posts that got Autsider banned, or, where those posts were removed, I’ve quoted them.

There are probably better ways to preserve the record, and in an ideal world we’d automatically archive posts and rationale that earned a warning or banning. But we aren’t set up to do that, we have a small volunteer staff, and I’ve been putting off much more pressing upgrades for years.

I didn’t forget; you’re failing to demonstrate what constitutes disruption outside of expression of views.

To wit:

How is that disruptive? All you had to do was ignore it and move on, but you took offense, personal offense and dispensed personal retribution.

Again, how is that disruptive outside of expression of a view? That isn’t posting en masse with intent to disrupt the functioning of the board. It also isn’t hijacking the board to peddle penis pills for personal profit.

Another expression of view that could have been ignored with a roll of the eyes. It can only constitute disruption if expression of opinion constitutes disruption.

Yes, it was. Look ^

Oh, well, I guess I learned something. But still, I didn’t read that the court relied on a clause to arrive at their opinion. They said, “shopping malls have replaced the parks and squares that were “traditionally the home of free speech,”” Why is a clause necessary to make that observation?

I’m having trouble understanding that case.

The court held that while the statute does not “prevent [newspapers] from saying anything [they] wish” it “exacts a penalty on the basis of the content.” Because newspapers are economically finite enterprises, “editors may conclude that the safe course is to avoid controversy,” thereby chilling speech. Furthermore, the Court held the exercise of editorial judgment is a protected First Amendment activity.

Penalty? Does that mean they were fined?

Here’s another site: oyez.org/cases/1973/73-797

In an opinion written by Chief Justice Warren E. Burger, the Court recognized the risks posed to the “true marketplace of ideas” by media consolidation and barriers to entry in the newspaper industry. However, even in that context, “press responsibility is not mandated by the Constitution and…cannot be legislated.” The statute was an “intrusion into the function of editors,” and imposed "a penalty on the basis of the content." Chief Justice Burger relied on New York Times v. Sullivan in that the “right to reply” statute “limits the variety of public debate,” and was therefore unconstitutional.

Until I can understand what that means, I cannot comment on how it relates to ILP, Red Lion, or free speech.

If you are not broadcasting, then how am I receiving transmission? ESP? Am I invading your mind and stealing information without your consent? Clearly you are broadcasting and are, at this point, struggling to find some technicality to redefine “broadcasting”. That isn’t fair, Carleas. You’re not playing fair.

I agree but Marsh said “the more an owner opens his property up to the public in general, the more his rights are circumscribed by the statutory and constitutional rights of those who are invited in.” Nothing is more public than the internet.

Not true. No one is threatening YOUR freedom of speech; rather, you are threaten other’s freedom of speech on the basis of private ownership. Audience does matter and is of prime importance. Again, you’re not playing fair.

What’s the difference? Policy is just a more-local law.

A handful of companies own everything freepress.net/ownership/chart

And viewership matters-not as CNBC’s rating have been descending the toilet for years, yet they preach the same ole.

From the results of the election we can surmise the population is split 50/50 and therefore we should see 50% liberal and 50% conservative broadcasting, but that is not what we see.

Ok :confusion-scratchheadblue:

I’m not sure I can concede yet, but why can’t we discuss both in parallel?

Yes I can agree with that. If someone is being forcefully disruptive, then force warrants force. Force is not expression of opinion, but expression of action (posting en masse, hounding, doxing, etc). Also illegal activity such as child porn etc should be deleted and the person banned to protect the board so the board isn’t disrupted. Essentially, what Stefan Molyneux calls the Nonaggression Principle where no aggression can be initiated except in defense of aggression.

Thanks!

I agree, like when Mr Reasonable insulted me for being tacky and suggested I should fall off a ladder more often then report back: viewtopic.php?f=7&t=193363#p2693334

But if we ban everyone for that sort of thing, there wouldn’t be anyone left. That is where the moderator comes in whose job it is to moderate, which in your example, Dan did an excellent job of moderating, as I wrote here: viewtopic.php?f=7&t=193363#p2693103

Or even better, the community should police itself. Any member can callout and shame another for ad homs. A few good seeds planted in the community and the idea may take off and be able to maintain itself with decorum.

All it would mean is that someone could take it before a court on those grounds of free speech because of the webcam, which would be interpreted by the judges. It wouldn’t necessarily mean the pub is neutered. It would depend on how many people had access to the stream and the audibility and the coherence of the speech broadcasted, among other variables. But yes, the more you open up your establishment to the public, the more your rights are circumscribed by the rights of those invited in.

Well, behavior is not speech.

It depends who you are giving a forum to and why you wish to take it away.

Stefan Moylneux, for instance, runs a popular podcast where he invites guests for interviews, but he does not forbid anyone to come on his show because he’s scared of what they might say. So he’s not trying to hide or censor information from the public in order to advance his ideology. This is contrary to the mainstream media where Peter Schiff has said many times that he is no longer invited on their shows because they fear what he might say. Not only that, but they’ve pressured youtube into censoring Peter’s OWN videos of his appearance on those shows in the past. A couple years ago, I could see all the CNBC videos on Peter’s channel, but now it’s considered copyright violation and they won’t play. It’s censorship through perversion of the law.

Here is one of many youtube.com/watch?v=97_Sqb7CHuI

Google should be declared a public utility to end this madness.