in any case, i’m not conflating speech with violence, i’m not misconceiving anything. i disagree with the premise that speech and violence are discrete from one another.
Those two sentences are contradictory. There is no such thing as lawful, violent speech, nor unlawful, non-violent speech. No violent speech is protected; no non-violent speech is prohibited. We don’t have an authority to tell us exactly where that line is. We do have the consensus of society in general, who we can consult - formally or informally - on whether that line has been crossed.
“Content moderation” replaces that societal consensus with authoritarian opinion. When you decide I don’t need to hear from Redneck Russell about how he hates Jews, I am harmed. I don’t get to challenge Russell’s opinions, or argue with him, or rally people against him. In silencing him, you’ve taken away my ability to engage him. He still gets to recruit his disciples into his own little spaces out of your control. If I try to engage him there, he merely silences me, censors me. His acolytes never hear a dissenting opinion against him, because he, and you, have decided I don’t need to engage him.
They occasionally come out of their little holes, spout their nonsense in your forums, and proudly tell their compatriots that you banned them from talking to your community members because you couldn’t engage them.
Content moderation should not take the form of banning or blocking speech outright, and should not be conducted unilaterally. Moderation should be community driven and transparent. Anyone should be able to see what was hidden, so they can determine for themselves if the censorship was reasonable and appropriate. The content should remain readily available, perhaps “hidden” behind an unexpanded tab rather than deleted entirely.
Those two sentences are contradictory. There is no such thing as lawful, violent speech, nor unlawful, non-violent speech. No violent speech is protected; no non-violent speech is prohibited. We don’t have an authority to tell us exactly where that line is. We do have the consensus of society in general, who we can consult - formally or informally - on whether that line has been crossed.
“Content moderation” replaces that societal consensus with authoritarian opinion. When you decide I don’t need to hear from Redneck Russell about how he hates Jews, I am harmed. I don’t get to challenge Russell’s opinions, or argue with him, or rally people against him. In silencing him, you’ve taken away my ability to engage him. He still gets to recruit his disciples into his own little spaces out of your control. If I try to engage him there, he merely silences me, censors me. His acolytes never hear a dissenting opinion against him, because he, and you, have decided I don’t need to engage him.
They occasionally come out of their little holes, spout their nonsense in your forums, and proudly tell their compatriots that you banned them from talking to your community members because you couldn’t engage them.
Content moderation should not take the form of banning or blocking speech outright, and should not be conducted unilaterally. Moderation should be community driven and transparent. Anyone should be able to see what was hidden, so they can determine for themselves if the censorship was reasonable and appropriate. The content should remain readily available, perhaps “hidden” behind an unexpanded tab rather than deleted entirely.