The Right to Cause Offence
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@gwen-dragon Do you find Pat Condell to be an ugly Right?
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@gwen-dragon Because the link that I posted were his well-expressed and balanced views that got censored by YouTube. He had a popular channel for some time.
Take a look at the last link I posted where he attacks the ugly religious right for their intolerance of gays.
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@gwen-dragon The ugly right won't like him much, apart from the Neo Nazis who will like his anti-immigrant stance.
My point is that criticism that is truthful (or at least sincere), not hateful, not abusive, even if it is disliked by others, should not be censored.
The Buddha was always truthful, but sometimes said things that were displeasing to others, for the benefit of many.
The high caste Brahmins during the Buddha's time were hypocrites like many clergy nowadays who live in luxury and abuse their power. The Buddha compared them to dogs in the Soṇa Sutta. No doubt, they found his truthful description of their behaviour highly offensive.
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The problem is that you have to differentiate in freely expressing your opinion and a different one from insulting or disqualifying others gratuitously and without foundation, concepts that are often confused, sometimes even intentionally.
Freedom of expression may imply that others feel offended, but this must always be tolerated if it corresponds to the truth and objective facts
Direct insults, however, have nothing to do with freedom of expression and disqualify the insultor from the entrance, insults are always synonymous with lack of arguments.
Google and YT evidently censor contents, sometimes justifiably and others for pure commercial interests, which naturally is rejectable.
But I also participated in G + and of course the censorship that may be there is based largely on the reports of the users themselves, nothing to do with for example Facebook, with a strong censorship that borders on ridicule, where even a photo of the Little Mermaid of Kobenhavn was eliminated, for being a nude -
@gwen-dragon said in The Right to Cause Offence:
Yes. I agree censorship is bad. Censorship in a culture is a way to oppress opinions and keep people away to get information.
But who really makes the rules for what you and me call: truthful, hateful, abusive content/behavior/and so on?In my opinion, censorship is necessary. It is not bad to censor abuse, slander, or useless off-topic rubbish. My objection was only to censoring critical comment just because some find it offensive.
The difficult part is deciding on what is truthful, hateful, and so on, as it often depends on the writer's intent.
Comments like F*** this are easily edited to tone down the language without changing the essential meaning of a comment.
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@pesala said in The Right to Cause Offence:
as it often depends on the writer's intent.
That is the vital part!!
With exceptions for blatant hostility, It is very often not possible for the reader to judge correctly. -
@tbgbe said in The Right to Cause Offence:
It is very often not possible for the reader to judge correctly.
I very rarely find it impossible. The hostility in the linked post is very obvious. There are many other such examples that have never been deleted or edited. Search for any word that dictionaries mark as offensive, and you will find more such threads, but only a few that are not offensive in spite of the language.
If I am doubtful I will flag a post and ask for a second opinion.
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@pesala I did say
With exceptions for blatant hostility
Also, hostility can be obvious even without any particular words being used.
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Whether a censorship is or is not indicated is often a very thin limit. Remaining with the example of YT. It is perfectly legitimate to censor porn movies on this channel, as well as videos with criminal content or that incite racism and other violent content. But of course it is not legitimate to censor videos with well-founded content and they can only be uncomfortable to a government or a corporate.
I can say that the electricity companies are shameless thieves, it is not lawful and reprehensible to say that blacks are an inferior race or tutorials like making a bomb
Better example than YT is Facebook, which is known for censorship on many occasions with hilarious puritanism, such as deleting the photo of David de Miguelangel for being a nude or other similar cases.
Also a good example like the case of a woman in Spain which post a joke about the attack Carrero Blanco (right hand of dictator Franco) on Twitter and she faced a jail sentence for this, just like a rapper for insulting the King in one of his songs, while journalists and even politicians from the extreme right put death threats against members of a leftist party on Twitter and that nothing happened to them.
This is perhaps an example of a censorship that should not exist, -
@tbgbe said in The Right to Cause Offence:
Also, hostility can be obvious even without any particular words being used.
- The use of certain words makes it obvious that there is hostility as the same thing could have been said without shouting and f-words. Long before I was a moderator, I reported that post, but no action was taken.
- Hostility is often rightly assumed without any use of f-words that would indicate obvious hostility. I reported this post, it received five downvotes, but again no action was taken. The post clearly violates the forum rule to be courteous.
- Hostility is often assumed where there is none. Two people upvoted my post. A first time poster had a rant about it and someone else agreed that his rant was justified. People often have an agenda or hold a grudge, so they find offence where there is none, and where none was intended.
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Freedom is an illusion in USA, you have the right to shut up and get abused by the government and companies there. Lots of people criticise Russia for being a dictatorship, but I felt more free in Russia than I ever felt in the USA.
USA sure fool people who are easily manipulated with their propaganda. The bottom of line is, there's no such thing as freedom of speech in the USA.
As for 9/11, the USA caused that by themselves. Is what happens when you invade foreign country under the pretext of being there to "help", but end up murdering civilians while trying to steal resources.
How offensive is this, although it is the raw true? Are we going to censor history?
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@kobi said in The Right to Cause Offence:
How offensive is this, although it is the raw true? Are we going to censor history?
I don't find it offensive, and would defend your right to say it, but I think it is a long way from the truth if you're blaming 9/11 on the USA invasion of Iraq.
I long since forgot why the Russians invaded
IraqAfghanistan. It is hard to distinguish the truth from the main stream media news.As for freedom, I don't think a channel like The Ring of Fire would stay online for 14 years if it was a Russian opposition news channel.
Freedom always has limits. Anyone in Russia would be able to express homophobic views that might not be acceptable elsewhere. The illusion of freedom applies just as long as one sides with the majority; if one holds a view that is not acceptable to mainstream views, one is likely to get criticised, censored, beaten up, or imprisoned like Pussy Riot, for example, in Russia, or Tommy Robinson in the UK.
Nevertheless, it is true what you say about freedom being illusory in the USA. Some views get suppressed, while others that are really quite obnoxious are deemed acceptable.
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@pesala said in The Right to Cause Offence:
The illusion of freedom applies just as long as one sides with the majority; if one holds a view that is not acceptable to mainstream views, one is likely to get criticised, censored, beaten up, or imprisoned like Pussy Riot, for example, in Russia, or Tommy Robinson in the UK.
Even scientists and experts - who speak facts not morals - can fall victim to censorship or legal attacks.
It is a sad state of affairs.
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Here is a video by Jonathan Pie (a Spoof News Reporter/Comic) ranting about the Free Speech Police (Link fixed)
There are certainly some extraordinary examples of people getting cautioned or charged for jokes on social media.
He mentions Matthew Woods jailed for 3 months for a Facebook post.
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A recent case that has led to arrests
Some guys thought it was funny to build a model of Grenfell Tower and burn it on a bonfire, then post it on social media.
Is it right to allow such videos on the basis of the right to cause offence? Well, I guess they had every right to make and publish such a video, but now they will face the consequences. I expect that they will claim it was just a joke.
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The respect between people and their opinions is certainly important for a good coexistence. But this in reality is not always the case. But for an insult you always need at least two, one that insults and another that feels offended by it.
But this is a walk on a tightrope, since where is the limit set?
What is absolutely absurd to punish with jail someone unknown and ignored by everyone, faces imprisonment for a comment on Twitter or FB, while they forgive and applaud the lies and insults to the intelligence of large corporations and politicians.
Personally I have it very clear, to me it is completely indifferent an insult to my person from someone that I do not care at all, with much I will think that the one who insults does it for lack of arguments, which automatically disqualifies him, not me .
You can not draw punishable limits on words, only on facts, if we do not want to lose personal freedom.
Practical case that we saw in the recent past and everyone found absurd rightly
But nevertheless in Spain a girl faces jail for a joke about the attack on Carrero Blanco, right hand of the dictator Franco, who did on Twitter.
Reason any and with a sentence that she herself is an insult to all the victims of this dictator, as it was also when they decorated with the medal of honor to a torturer of this dictator.
Limits? For whom? -
An excellent rant by David Mitchell on Rudeness
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The Buddha sometimes used speech that was harsh and disagreeable to others, if it was beneficial.
The Abhayarājakumāra Sutta gives one example where the Buddha used harsh words to Devadatta. On an earlier occasion, when Devadatta asked the Buddha to hand over the leadership of the Saṅgha to him, his speech was even more harsh.
“Not even to Sāriputta or Mahā-Moggallāna would I hand over the Order, how would I then to you, vile one, to be expectorated like spittle?”
There is no indication that these words were beneficial to Devadatta, who afterwards conspired to kill the Buddha, and succeeded in injuring him, drawing blood. Then he later succeeded to split the Saṅgha. These heinous crimes condemned Devadatta to hell.
When someone is behaving in a way that is divisive and harmful to the community, it is not wrong-speech to criticise them, in harsh terms if they do not correct their behaviour when spoken to politely.
There are a few users in this Community who deserve to be called trolls. Their constant complaints about their pet features not being implemented yet or their pet bugs not being fixed, create a toxic climate for others who are loyal users of Vivaldi, and patiently waiting for it to improve.
Such negative users contribute nothing of value to the Vivaldi Community. They help no-one to find hidden features, workarounds, or modifications that can be used to implement missing features at once. They just complain that this sucks, that is crap, other browsers do this better, etc.
We need to bring in some Russian Moderators to sort out the “bad drivers.”
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Jo Brand's Joke Censored by the BBC.
In the episode, Brand told presenter Victoria Coren Mitchell that people who attacked Mr Farage and far-right political figures with milkshakes were "pathetic".
She said: "Why bother with a milkshake when you could get some battery acid?," adding, "I'm not going to do it, it's purely a fantasy."Some people have apparently had a humourectomy.
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It is a fine line to tread. All too often, people lose their jobs over such comments.
Writing on Twitter he (Farage) added:
I am sick to death of overpaid, left-wing, so-called comedians on the BBC who think their view is morally superior. Can you imagine the reaction if I had said the same thing as Jo Brand?
That is the whole point. Comedians make jokes; politicians should be making comments that are meant to be taken seriously.