I wouldn’t call “not actively espousing hateful or bigoted views” “self-censorship”. And if people are afraid to be hateful or creepy in public, I’d call that a win. You don’t get to proclaim the advantages of chattel slavery and be magically immune from everyone’s responses, and afterwards you can’t complain about self-censorship when you think twice about writing or saying something abhorrent.
I am afraid to be mis-interpreted as hateful or bigoted, and have to spend an inordinate amount of time/effort either choosing my words for my audience (which is really hard on the internet with such a broad audience) or correcting knee-jerk responses.
The general over-reaction and constant jousting at windmills seems like a net loss to me.
I've found that a net good thing at least for myself. I used to be the dude who would blurt out whatever popped into my head and not care too much how it would be received by my audience, and sometimes even relish the fact that it was badly received.
By self-censoring and thinking through what I'm about to say and thinking about my audience before I open my mouth I find not only are social interactions easier and more pleasant, but I actually get my points across more consistently and clearly. People are then also more open to listening and don't always automatically get defensive. So ironically applying self-censorship has made it easier to make the points I actually want to make.
I think at the end of the day you just have to take that risk. Or not. It's up to you. I think the majority of the time that you accidentally say something stupid or are misunderstood, it's in a fairly low-stakes situation, so a simple apology will suffice. But when you're a public figure with power over people and ideologies, you have to be a lot more careful about where you choose to engage.
Arguably the (male) head of the Free Software movement has no place debating the definition of "sexual assault" or "statutory rape" in a conversation about a human trafficker and child abuser. His opinions there have zero value (not to mention that a debate over such definitions is missing the point entirely), and engaging in that conversation -- even to come to the defense of his tangentially-related dead friend -- was a very poor choice, even for someone known to be contentious and often misunderstood.
On any subject one can imagine two tribes: The "self-restrained" and the "self-indulgent". The former thinks through every word and the latter blurts out immediately.
And they could self-organize into self-selected groups. Then each type could best thrive in their own self-constructed communities.
And they could practice other-tolerance for the other sort of folks. Because tolerance.
That, plus one can actually change one's mind on some things one has reflexively formed a badly thought-out opinion on before embarrassing oneself by blurting it out.
Not only getting one's point across better, but actually getting a better point across.
I agree with this, at least. It is very easy to be misunderstood in a textual medium like the internet, where people have very little (or no) context about you or how you express yourself.
You call your solution self-censorship, but I just kinda think it's general common sense: why do you feel the need to broadcast your views to a large, unknown audience on controversial subjects where misunderstandings cause a lot of trouble for you? There are plenty of other real-world places to discuss things that don't carry that risk, and likely some more-private places on the internet where you can join an actual community of people who will get to know you over time and understand what you say in context.
Put another way: most people wouldn't randomly walk up to a group of 10 strangers on the street and immediately bring up a controversial topic. Why do we think that's a good move on the internet?
I think we're starting to see the social limits of instant around-the-world communication. It just doesn't work as well as we want it to. The internet is still ridiculously new to the world, and our understanding of its social nuances is still in its infancy.
I agree our understanding of the social nuances of the internet is in infancy; though the human tendency to enact mob "justice" is relatively better understood. The internet has enabled that ugly tendency of humanity to a scary degree. Especially coupled with the strong profit motive of sites like Vice and other so called media outlets, which stand to benefit greatly from whipping up such smear campaigns.
What's the difference between exercising self-censorship and exercising judgment about what's appropriate to say in different situations? Because I think we all do that. Is that censorship?
Has your judgment ever led you to conclude that something ought to be said and it's the appropriate thing to say, and then choosing not to say it anyway because you can't predict the response?
I do that a lot.
You could trivially interpret that as "exercising judgment", but it's not that. I am exercising caution and self-preservation.
I can definitely relate to that, and that's probably a good way to think about the difference.
However, that would categorize Stallman's gaffe here as bad judgment and not self-censorship. Seeing as what he said was definitely not appropriate to say in those circumstances.
Well, there's always the risk of some twitter celebrity choosing your comment to draw attention to. There's been more than a few cases of regular people losing their jobs to mobs calling their employer.
The [-] button is actually a handy thread-collapser. The downvote button is a mirror image of the upvote button and only shows if you have several hundred karma.
Your argument assumes that there's some objectively right definition of which views are hateful or bigoted that exactly corresponds with the ones that will bring the social media mob's wrath down on someone. There clearly isn't:
- How someone is treated depends heavily on whether they're perceived as being part of the right clique. For example, a few years ago Nintendo sacked someone who thought it was a great tragedy that owning photos and videos of kids being raped was illegal and bloviated about this on social media. (Probably not for that reason as it turns out, although her job did involve interacting with kids.) She was in the clique and the people who drew attention to this weren't, so all the right-thinking folks and publications rewrote her views into something much less objectionable, then insisted that repeating what she actually said was a bigoted lie and the whole thing was a misogynistic attack against her. I'm pretty sure there's a heavy overlap between those people and the ones going after Stallman by rewriting what he said in the opposite direction now.
- The views you have to hold in order not to be a bigot aren't consistent from year to year. For instance, there's a faction of self-proclaimed feminists who're really hateful to trans people and have successfully lobbied for some rather bigoted laws. A few years ago any trans woman who merely pointed out the harm they'd done was labelled as a terrible misogynist. Sometime around 2016 this flipped and all the same people who'd been demanding everyone shut up decided those views were now so evil that they justified beating up elderly women merely for holding them, and that the people who were uncomfortable with this violence were the bigots. There was zero overlap between the views that were acceptable before and after the flip, and no room for a more moderate position. That faction has become increasingly irrelevant over the years, so fighting them is actually less important than it used to be.
The larger your audience, the more likely one of them will consider your views hateful or bigoted (regardless of what your views are).
Are there perhaps some views that you think are not quite hateful or bigoted, but aren't totally fine to state? Maybe, "err on the side of caution" type views?
I wonder what Zeno would think on moving your views from completely hateful to completely fine: first you must go halfway-hateful, then half of that, and so on. Perhaps one will never find a completely fine view to state!
I'm picturing someone from China saying "if people are afraid to say things that undermine the stability of our country in public I'd call that a win".
The fun is always in defining what exactly should be in the category "hateful"/"undermining stability of our country".
As a side note, I've advocated for chattel slavery in the past, it actually didn't go too badly.
It's best to look at it through the prism of game theory.
Moral outrage as a language game, especially where certain hot button issues are concerned, like anything involving sexuality, bears a striking resemblance with the language game that unfolds umong children when it is alleged that someone has the cooties.
When such an allegation is made there are three possible plays. Agree, disagree, or stay quiet. In my opinion, the best play is to vocally agree with the allegation when it is made by at least one popular kid or when a critical mass of kids agreeing with the allegation has already been reached. When a critical mass has not yet been reached and the allegation is backed by only a small number of kids and kids who are unpopular or of undetermined popularity status, the best play is to stay quiet while waiting to see if a popular kid joins the allegation or if a critical mass is reached, at which point you should start to also voice your agreement. Something you never ever want to do is to speak up to disagree.
This is because the claim "you've got the cooties", despite being by definition false, draws credibility from how many people agree with it. If someone finds themselves on the receiving end of the allegation, the only possible response is to go "no you've got the cooties" and try to build consensus around that.
So, Kid A goes "Kid B's got the cooties", Kid C goes "No he doesn't". That would be a very stupid play if Kid C is an unpopular Kid, because it would be likely to make Kid A pivot into expressing the view "Kid C's got the cooties", putting Kid C into a strategically worse position than he started out in.
Now, choosing between the vocally-agree versus stay-quiet plays: Vocally-agree is usually a better play. Because Kid B could respond by turning around and saying "no, Kid C's got the cooties!" That is unlikely, but the probability is greater than zero.
If, on the other hand, Kid C goes "Haha! It's true! Kid B's got the cooties" that makes Kids A and C allies, so it advances Kid C's position by getting it into the safety of the herd, so to speak. Because now, if Kid B goes "no, Kid C's got the cooties" you will find that Kid A will voice disagreement. So between Kid B having the cooties and Kid C having the cooties, the greater consensus is around Kid B having the cooties.
It quickly becomes apparent that the game unfolds around popularity and conformism as a self-fulfilling prophecy and that, at the end of the day, popular kid always wins, unpopular kid always loses.
So, about Stallman. Popular kids win. Yet again. Who would have thought that. Stallman's got the cooties.
Yeah, people should be afraid to be "creepy" in public. Bring back that good old high school dynamic where nerds knew their place. Next headline: RMS stuffed into gym locker. Right on!
Consider this then: People who are not allowed to speak their mind will simply be hateful and creepy in the privacy of their home. Wouldn't you rather know who exactly is hateful and creepy to avoid them entirely, rather than create a fake atmosphere of safety.
