Social media posts inciting hate and division have “real world consequences” and there is a responsibility to regulate content, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, insisted on Friday, following Meta’s decision to end its fact-checking programme in the United States.
Ok, and what does that mean if not the right to free speech?
Just because the far right tries to change the definition to forcing private platforms to letting them say what they want doesn’t change anything. That’s not free speech, that’s restricting the platform owner’s speech. Free speech is a restriction on the types of laws governments can pass regarding speech (i.e. forcing a major platform to accept a user’s speech would certainly be a violation).
The political right can’t change that definition for the same reason the political left can’t force deplatforming of “hate speech.”
It just means being allowed to say what you want. It has nothing to do with rights or laws.
Uhhhh that’s the opposite of what’s happening. The UN is the one trying to change the definition to pretend it means something other than what it does.
Yes. That is the very definition of free speech.
The platform is not the one being censored. The users are.
It seems we’re arguing the same thing.
The far right in the US argues that “free speech” means forcing large SM orgs to give them a platform, and this UN goon seems to think it means silencing “hate speech” (I guess freedom from speech?).
Both are wrong.
Yes that’s what it means. The platforms are under no obligation to give it to them, but if they don’t allow certain types of speech, that is the definition of censorship (the opposite of free speech). It is their prerogative as a private platform to censor speech.
The UN goons think silencing hate speech is not censorship. It is. Let’s stop playing senseless semantics games and just own it. Say “yes we are censoring hate speech” because arguing that it’s not is dishonest.
Exactly, and I argue censorship is only a problem when it comes from the government. If a private platform censors my speech, I can either accept it or go elsewhere. If the government censors my speech, I’m screwed.