I used the site for a bit. It had some serious potential as a reddit alternative, and was poised perfectly to reap the benefits of a mass exodus. Of course, I used it when it was called Squabbles less than a week ago, before the cringy name change to drop a vowel to be more like the websites from the early 2010’s. I think the biggest hurdle for them was that they were a .io domain and couldn’t host pornographic material, so the porn subreddits couldn’t use the platform even if they wanted to. I think they recently switched to .co, so that might change, who knows.
I’m not sure I agree with the owner’s top-down approach to website design and management. I had no idea about his anti-LGBTQ opinions until now, but that’s one more reason to not to continue using it, aside from the fact that growth is basically reversing and very little OC is being posted.
When I hear “free speech purism”, I immediately think that either the person/people who want that don’t know the dark forces they are inviting, or worse, they do know and they want it to happen. Neither of those are a good look. Some speech absolutely should be banned from these websites for obvious reasons. People who conflate freedom of speech for consequence-free speech are idiots who deserve to be banned from everything everywhere.
I may not be onto anything here, this may just be a coincidence. However, the timing of these two events are suspicious.
1: Squabbles.io rebrands to squabblr.co. The .io domain explicitly forbids anything that may be considered illegal by any country. The site could be shut down if this is violated. You know what would be considered hate speech by some countries, such as Canada? Discrimination of someone based on their gender identity, ie trans people.
2: Squabblr rebrands to a “free speech” website and removes all explicit mention of LGBT+ being protected under their ToS. Within microseconds (slight exaggeration, but within less than 24 hours) people are chiming in with the “trans women are not women” statements.
Was that planned, or just extremely unfortunate timing?
You’re not kidding about the anti trans openness there now. A poster was ranting about liberal safe spaces, when called anti trans this was his DEFENSE.
“I am not saying that people with dicks who claim thay are women should be exterminated…”
that was his defense. That should tell you everything about who squabblr is for now.
I mean I don’t care for most of the “free speech” sites because I don’t care for the content that’s posted to them. In addition of never heard of Squabblr. But lets not be hypocrites here, the normal line is: “It’s a private company.” This also applies for companies you don’t like. Not just when a major platform bans people you disagree with in the name of reducing “toxicity” (a completely nebulous term that could be used to describe anything you don’t like.) They can do whatever they want. If you don’t like it, don’t use the site. Simple as.
The sole dev of Squabblr (Jayclees) really needs to hire someone to do the community management/PR side of things. He is great at programming but he keeps making snap top-down decisions that go against what the userbase wants. And his use of language (i.e., “free speech platform”) sounds like a fkn dog whistle.
All these big names on Squabblr going to Discuit like the devs can’t do the exact same thing over there. I’m tired of migrating platforms. If Lemmy doesn’t work out, then I’m going to just go touch grass for fun.
IMO if sites want to take a "free speech" approach without allowing bigots, maybe they should adopt the Canadian law. We don't have free speech, we have what's known as "freedom of expression". Essentially, we can say whatever unless it's hate speech or bigoted.
Yeah, Canada has censorship, but it's essentially just to censor racist idiots and homophobic fools.
A way to improve it further is to see freedom of speech as quantitative, try to maximise it for all parties involved, and look at the consequences of banning a certain discourse or not.
Using hate speech as an example:
if you forbid it, you’re lowering a bit the freedom of speech of those who’d otherwise voice it. It’s only a bit because they’re still allowed to voice non-hateful discourses there.
if you allow it, you’re lowering a lot the freedom of speech of those who’d be targeted by it. It’s a lot because they’ll disengage and leave.
So by banning hate speech you’re actually increasing the overall freedom of speech, even if reducing it a bit for a certain audience.
The same reasoning applies towards other situations. Like “that fucking user” doing the online equivalent of megaphoning so nobody else is heard; misplaced porn, gore, or other things that a lot of people would rather not see; harassment (it is performative speech, and yet you need to prevent it).
I feel like this covers what you’ve linked about freedom of expression in Canada, but it’s a bit more practical and flexible to adapt into online communities.
Also, it’s important to take into account that there’s a hierarchy between discourses, when trying to maximise freedom of speech: descriptive > prescriptive > performative.
if you allow it, you’re lowering a lot the freedom of speech of those who’d be targeted by it. It’s a lot because they’ll disengage and leave
I disagree that this is lowering free speech. Those people who leave are still entirely within their ability to stay and continue speaking. Free speech isn’t lesser just because someone doesn’t feel like speaking
The problem with this reasoning is that it could be used to justify banning any speech (not just hate speech) and still claim “we’re banning it but ackshyually we aren’t reducing your free speech. You’re still able to say it, it’s just that you don’t like the consequences of saying it here.” Because even people under the worst dictatorships out there are still able to voice censored discourses.
Instead of looking at the ability of the individuals, IMO it’s better to look at the effects in the social environment. Hate speech targetted at a group effectively makes them leave and/or stop speaking. As a result, the discourses that they were voicing get silenced with them, and the social acceptability to voice those discourses goes down. The environment in question becomes less free as a result.
This might sound like abstract “WORDS WORDS WORDS”, but IMO it has a bunch of desirable consequences:
It avoids the special pleading claim that “hate speech isn’t speech”, while still allowing you to ban it under certain circumstances.
There’s less room to misuse the ban against hate speech towards legitimate/non-hateful discourses. Specially when you get environments infested with witch hunters, that sometimes are as bad as the witches that they claim to hunt.
It gives you grounds to get rid of specially stupid, noisy, obnoxious or obtuse users, regardless of what they say, provided that their presence shuts other users up.
It’s flexible enough to address even a 4chan-like “mods? what mods?” approach or a Beehaw-like “be nice or get out” one, because it forces you to take the userbase into account.
You don’t need to deal with blackbox concepts like “feelings” and “intentions” and the likes.
Hate speech targetted at a group effectively makes them leave and/or stop speaking. As a result, the discourses that they were voicing get silenced with them, and the social acceptability to voice those discourses goes down. The environment in question becomes less free as a result.
This is where I don’t agree. Hate speech doesn’t make anyone leave. It has no power nor authority over people to make them do anything. No matter how much someone spams “kill all niggers”, it doesn’t actually do anything. If someone leaves, it’s entirely because they aren’t personally interested in being there. This is in contrast to censorship from the platform, where there is the ability to unilaterally force a user to not participate via bans or removals.
It’s the same idea as how free speech applies to the government not censoring the town square. Someone leaving because they don’t enjoy what people say is not an infringement on anyone’s speech, but the government arresting people based on what they say is.
Just not censoring people offers nearly all the benefits you claim your perspective offers.you don’t have to worry about misuse of censorship because it isn’t used at all, and it is entirely devoid of “feeling” and “intent”, and the other things like ability to an undesirable speech isn’t particularly relevant when discussing a free speech platform.
This is where I don’t agree. Hate speech doesn’t make anyone leave.
You’re moving the goalposts from “it doesn’t hamper your ability” to “people don’t leave”, Reddit style. And you still placed the goalposts where you won’t score.
If you want to know how stupid your claim (that boils down to “I dun unrurrstand! Speach don’t do nothing!”) sounds like, you don’t need even:
No, you don’t need those things. A tiny bit of reasoning should be enough to show that, if you shit constantly on the groups that a person belongs to, the person will eventually leave or shut up.
Speech has power over people, regardless of authority, no matter how much you pretend that it doesn’t - it makes people do things, it makes people not do things. This is fucking obvious for anyone with a functional brain dammit.
If you want to continue this conversation, then show a bit more depth of thought than you’re doing currently. Otherwise, I won’t waste my time further, OK?
Since “free speech” is a dogwhistle, what should a hypothetical place actually interested in free speech as more than just a bigotry shield call what they’re trying to do? Some place interested in allowing discussion of objectionable topics without bigotry?
Yes, whatever, those don’t exist anywhere, you don’t need to respond with that tidbit. Humor the hypothetical here.
Call it “Open Discussion”. Make it clear that the purpose of the site is to allow for discussion from all walks of life and perspectives, but that it has to be actual civil discussion. Outright hatred and bigotry, as well as arguing in bad faith, aren’t helpful or productive in an open discussion, and as such would be shunned and banned. This way, you can still have opinions that aren’t “mainstream”, but you won’t be removed as long as you’re civil and respectful about it. Doing this will attract people who are really interested in hearing other perspectives and sharing their own, instead of alt-right shitheads looking for another place to infest.
This way, you can still have opinions that aren’t “mainstream”, but you won’t be removed as long as you’re civil and respectful about it.
I mean, you sort of identified the problem, but still missed it. It isn’t “mainstream” because we’re taking about marginalized minority groups. It can only be seen as leaning mainstream because LGBTQ+ have a lot of allies that don’t fall under that identity, but it still falls short of actually being mainstream and short of a supporting majority.
Think about the numbers this way; you have LGBTQ+ (or some other minority group), allies, “don’t cares,” “don’t want to knows,” and bigots. We think we know the bigots, those are the haters. What is surprising to most is that the “don’t want to knows” are the biggest faction of bigots, although it is an indirect association.
A common transition for the “don’t want to knows” is saying, “I’m tired of hearing from those Zorb snowflakes only, the other side should be heard as well – free speech. We should have an open discussion.”
This suggestion, while it sounds positive, enables those who want to troll and slander, and they get to do so behind anonymity and with the support of others. For the bigot which openly expresses a hatred for Zorbs and Narfs, they just been given an umbrella of protection under “free speech” to say hurtful things. – Oh, blatant hate speech itself is still considered a violation of TOS? – Good luck trying to moderate an influx of alt accounts which just stoke up the problem by saying, “The Zorbs and Narfs are taking over.” “It might be an unpopular opinion, but non-Zorbs and Narfs need a voice too.” “What Zorbs and Narfs practice is against the teachings of The Great Plunis.” “Plunis said that the Zorbs and Narfs are immoral.” “Zorbs and Narfs are stripping away our Constitutional rights.” “Even taking about Zorbs and Narfs in our schools might trick our kids into supporting or even becoming Narfs themselves. Think of the kids.”
Now telling a bigot that they can’t offend others isn’t hurting them. Giving them a platform where they can be safe to constantly etch away at human decency of marginalized groups is a platform too high, especially when it provides an opportunity to express their vile dislike of a group of people that are somehow different than them with a different perspective of the world.
So how about those Zorbs? From their perspective, anyone might be threatening to them and might want to cause them harm. How can a Narf recognize that someone else is a Zorb, a Narf, an ally, a “don’t care,” a “don’t want to know,” or an outright bigot? As a group of people already in a minority, they need safe spaces to find others they can identify with or who support them, so that they can openly discuss the social challenges they face daily. It isn’t a debate, these are challenges and problems they gave daily. If a social forum which seemed to offer that sort of protected space suddenly changes their TOS in support of “free speech,” and the maintainer of the site declares that they want to encourage discussion and multi-sided debate, that safe space has just been ransacked. Whereas the community they had joined was reserved for peers and allies, that may no longer be the case and those bigots can still be threatening even if they don’t come out and directly say “I hate you.”
There aren’t two sides to an “I am a Zorb,” and “I can’t stand Zorbs” debate. It isn’t the same as one side saying “I like tomatoes,” and another side saying “tomatoes are disgusting,” it is more like the debate about being Pro-Choice vs. Pro-Life… It isn’t as though the Pro-Choice folks are Anti-Life, but the Pro-Life folks are very much Anti-Choice. The sides of the debate can’t even agree about what they are against.
So, as an ally, and someone who really liked squabbles.io a month ago, because it felt like a positive community, I’m disgusted with the changes made this past week. As far as I’m concerned, squabbles.io should have replaced their logo as they did, but they should have replaced Bort with a giant red tomato, to really emphasize how vile and disgusting the site has become.
I don’t have an answer for you but thank you for asking this (with the presumably earnest intent). It seemed to originally mean speech being minimally actionable by government. These idiots today turned it into speech that I agree with having no negative consequences.
I have no brief word or words to encompass this, but enjoy. Or critique it. There will be no consequences because I may or may not be Joe Biden.
Also, you guys wanna see my legs? I was just outside.
Frankly I’m just wondering how we let “free speech” become a dogwhistle. Is water in a bottle a dogwhistle because trump drank one one time on video (with two hands, remember that scandal?) Is coffee a dogwhistle because racist people also drink coffee? Not everything is a “dogwhistle” nor should it be considered as such simply because the words “free speech platform” are used instead of “non-censorious communication service.” Tipper Gore and her Moral Majority have been fighting free speech since Jello Biafra used an H. R. Geiger painting on a record insert she bought her kid, I’ve been complaining about censorship since she got “Parental Advisory” slapped on CDs limiting my ability to sneak music past my overbearing mother as a child (mostly seditious music, anto-religious music, or music by POC, mind you, which is racism), I’ve been bitching about radio beeps and edits since I can remember, free speech has always been a highly regarded value of mine and I’m not going to let those people steal it or their enemies bully me out of supporting it.
It’s because shit-heads love to hide behind objectively good ideals. They want to deflect criticism of what they’re saying or doing into criticism of the ideal. “Oh, you hate free speech!?”
It’s coded language in the right context – “free speech platform” with a wink and a nod.
See also: “Patriot”, “protecting children”, “thugs”, etc.
One can “not hate free speech” while also “hating what you are saying.” These are two separate things, it’s like saying “I like soda, but I don’t like pepsi.” There are other sodas, and there are other “things to say” besides racism. In this instance, tell the hypothetical person you’re talking to who said “oh you hate free speech,” “No, I’m all for free speech, and I’m also for freedom of association. I don’t like what you speak about, so I choose not to associate with you.”
Sure, in this context maybe it is a wink and a nod, but saying “free speech is a dogwhistle” and insinuating every free speech activist since Jello “Nazi Punks Fuck Off” Biafra is actually a secret right winger is patently ridiculous and it is a trend I’ve been noticing recently, and I will exercise my right to free speech to criticize the practice as you are free to ironically exercise your right to free speech by asserting that free speech is actually a dogwhistle.
To your see alsos:
“Patriot” and “Thug” I’ll give you, but “Protecting children” isn’t a “dogwhistle,” it is a manipulation tactic and it is used by all sides everywhere. Every time I hear it for any reason I am immediately suspicious of one’s motives. It is unsurprisingly effective on parents too, but since I’m not one and don’t want kids I have a pretty good immunity to it.
It’s not complicated. Today if someone uses the term “Free Speech” the vast vast majority of the time they are talking about being able to say shitty things without consequences. The remainder are mostly people who misconstrue Free Speech as something that applies to non-governmental entities and finally actual real cases that get settled in court.
It’s hard to find a name because nowadays people often use terms like ‘bigotry’, ‘hate speech’ and ‘bad faith’ to refer to anything they don’t like so they can shut down discussions.
You don’t need to label it. The vast majority of the internet will allow anyone acting in good faith to discuss their ideas. Every single time someone complains about being muted/silences/shadow-banned etc you can bet they subscribe to right-wing ideology using dog whistles or other hateful rhetoric. I was never banned anywhere for being Pro-Hillary instead of Pro-Bernie. I was downvoted sure, but that’s everyone elses prerogative. I wasn’t silences because some of my posts were hidden due to it. It’s asinine to claim that, and that’s what these people are whining about.
“Free Speech” is a dog whistle for far-right hate speech, when they spew hatred against minorities they try and call it free speech to make it sound acceptable.
And those same individuals will ban you or harass you if you call out their shitty behavior and vitriol. The far-right has no interest in real free speech, and want to censor any opposing worldview.
Absolutely, they’re not free speech at all. They’re huge hypocrites who just want to censor according to their view. They’re just using free speech as an excuse, if they had it their way they’d criminalize any form of dissent against them.
Man it’s wild how much Twitter just went down in flames. The way you said that really just made me think, a year ago it was a wildly successful social media site with (if I got the dates right) a looming acquisition by a guy who’d shown some mild signals he was an egomaniac alt-right freak. Now it’s basically a smoldering pile of wreckage.
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