Re: Free Speech and Censorship

[JP McBride]

Sorry for being unclear - I actually meant your general stance on what constitutes unethical censorship. You did indeed already state this opinion earlier in the thread, and I've given you my opinion on it already.

I'd be super interested in continuing the general discussion on free speech and what constitutes unethical censorship on the part of organizations which present work; I asked a hypothetical question at the end of my post to get a better idea about your stance on that in general. If you want to talk about that, I'd love to continue. And maybe others will want to continue the conversation of this case.

I tend not to place much value in abstract ethics as I find that it lends itself towards false conflict. That being said, here are two of the things I find important to consider when thinking about acts of censorship:

A. What specific harm is the censorship supposed to stop, and what is the magnitude of that harm?

B. To what degree will the censorship contribute to a climate of fear?

These are lines of inquiry, not variables. I do not weigh A against B. That would be an example of the false conflict that I wish to avoid.

[LadyLuck]

When you say climate of fear, I have to ask with, fear of what? Not all fears are equally deserving of outside intervention.

[kath]

Cool (I don't have anything in particular to say leading from that). I sometimes find hypothetical cases helpful because once can consider what the impact of a change to variable might be on your ethical stance on it, but they totally lose all utility if people start arguing from entrenched positions about a situation that never occurred and about which there is no truth. (And obviously, just because I sometimes like hypotheticals doesn't mean you have to want to talk about them.) I also find you can often end up with unnecessary conflict when referring to a real-life situation when there's not consistency in the info people have / info isn't particularly reliable / the people having the discussion are badly placed to know what was going on, but are appealing to what actually happened to define their opinion (because that's what matters).

[Gentleman Johnny]

Am I doing this right? FREEZE PEACH!

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