That's a total mischaracterization of people who believe in free speech.
I don't think people should say bigoted things. But more importantly, I don't think people should think bigoted things.
If you shame and ostracize people into not saying bigoted things, but you don't solve the thinking bigoted things problem, then all you've done is hide the problem, and you're suddenly surprised when a bigot gets elected to the White House or a bigoted police officer murders someone and gets away with it (again). Censored bigots don't magically stop being bigots--they just go form their own communities.
The way you get people to stop thinking bigoted things is not by silencing it, it's by explaining to people why they're wrong. Even if you don't change the mind of the bigot you're talking to, you might change the mind of someone else who is listening to or reading what you say.
I'm not campaigning for people's right to be cruel and impolite. I'm campaigning for conversation that brings the truth to light and improves our collective thinking.
And to be clear, I'm also not saying that free speech means you should have no consequences in any context. If you say something racist at work you should absolutely be fired. I'm saying that we need places where people can say racist things so that those racist things can be confronted with the truth.
> If you shame and ostracize people into not saying bigoted things, but you don't solve the thinking bigoted things problem, then all you've done is hide the problem
This is not true. It does not solve that person thinking bigoted things, but it does help prevent them from turning other people into bigots. A huge number of people have fallen into terrible thought patterns after being exposed to these ideas through youtubers and faux academics. If there are fewer people with PhDs after their name willing to lend a veneer of legitimacy to defeated ideas then there will be fewer people drawn into the trap.
> but it does help prevent them from turning other people into bigots
This is the same as saying "I can't logically defeat their points so I will use underhanded censorship tricks". I would not care so much if it was only about actually bigoted things but it seems to include everything that goes against what the average SV google engineer believes.
At the same time you are punishing these that are interested in seeing what the censored side thinks as well as the points against it.
> "I can't logically defeat their points so I will use underhanded censorship tricks"
You can't logically defeat bigots in a way that actually matters to them. If this were the case, then there wouldn't be bigots. The existence of systemic racism is not controversial among experts and hasn't been for a long time. Yet people insist on arguing about it forever. They don't care that logical arguments dismantle their beliefs.
Because it is a trick. It is a denial of service attack.
> You can't logically defeat bigots in a way that actually matters to them.
The goal of public debate is never to persuade the person you're debating, it's to persuade those watching the debate. Sometimes you can persuade the person you're talking to, but that take a lot more sophisticated understanding of the other person than you're going to achieve if you simply dismiss them as illogical.
> If this were the case, then there wouldn't be bigots.
That simply doesn't follow. Bigots do change their minds sometimes, slowly over time.
> The existence of systemic racism is not controversial among experts and hasn't been for a long time. Yet people insist on arguing about it forever. They don't care that logical arguments dismantle their beliefs.
It's not that they don't care, it's that they don't agree that they are logical.
Keep in mind, also, that logic is only as good as the evidence you feed into it. Logic in a vacuum of evidence is completely useless. People don't always change, but they do sometimes change.
Also, keep in mind that censorship isn't the only poor strategy the left is employing here. Sure, getting rid of censorship and just arguing with people won't fix things, but that's in part because the argumentation of the left is crap too. The cry of many people on the left these days is, "Come to the left, we'll call you a racist!" and they're surprised when this actually pushes people to the right. People think minds can't be changed because they've never actually learned how to change minds.
The truth has power. If you want people to stop supporting cops, for example: show them this video[1] and then point out that the murderer in that video now receives $2500/month in medical pension because he claims PTSD from the murder he committed. Try it out! It's not hard to science this for yourself.
> The goal of public debate is never to persuade the person you're debating, it's to persuade those watching the debate. Sometimes you can persuade the person you're talking to, but that take a lot more sophisticated understanding of the other person than you're going to achieve if you simply dismiss them as illogical.
Debate is not the only mechanism to do this. Why invite a bigot on stage? Wouldn't a better option be to have academics give lectures on the topic? What use is there to have somebody sitting next to them interjecting?
A staged debate is a curated event. There might be strategic reasons to invite a bigot on stage, but you're certainly not obligated to--in general I think putting reasonable voices next to ignorant ones gives an air of legitimacy to ignorance and drags down the reputation of both the reasonable voices and the curators. So yeah, don't invite a bigot on stage.
Curation is not the same as censorship. Curation is a whitelist where by default you don't let anyone speak, and choose specific people to give voice to--the choice of who to give voice to is in itself an act of free speech which I think should be protected. Newspapers, TV news, staged debates, etc. are all curated venues. I absolutely support boycotting Fox News and its sponsors, for example, because they're a curated venue which has decided that bigotry is the message they want to put out into the world. If the Mother Jones or ProPublica started hiring bigots to write their articles, I'd support boycotting them too--these are curated news sources and I donate to them because I expect them to limit their content to quality content.
A curated venue is different from a communications platform where the default position is to let everyone speak. Letting someone speak on a communications platform doesn't lend legitimacy to their opinions: everyone knows that any idiot can post on Facebook. Censorship is adding a blacklist: the default position is anyone can speak, but you've decided to make an exception to that rule.
The topic of this subthread isn't curated debate in curated venues, it's censorship of debate on social media.
If you want to argue that Facebook/Twitter/Reddit/Instagram/YouTube/HN should be curated venues where only academics are allowed to post on topics they are experts in, then start by showing me which credentials you feel qualify you to debate about human rights. If you actually believe what you're saying, then follow it to its logical conclusion and self-censor.
To be clear, I'm not actually saying you should self-censor--I don't believe that social media should be limited to academics. I'm merely pointing out that you aren't following your own principles.
> It does not solve that person thinking bigoted things, but it does help prevent them from turning other people into bigots.
I'm not sure how you came to this conclusion. Is it your belief that we are actually capable of silencing bigots? Keep in mind that the largest TV network in the US is Fox News, which is more-or-less openly bigoted. Bigots are capable of writing their own publications and building their own websites.
And I'll just save everyone's time by pre-emptively shooting down that dumb study of Reddit which censorship proponents frequently cite[1]; there's absolutely no evidence that those users didn't simply move over to Voat.
Put yourself in their shoes: if someone tried to censor anti-bigotry speech, wouldn't that mobilize you to find different avenues of speech and speak all the louder? What makes you think that bigots can't or won't do (or haven't already done) the same thing? On the contrary, trying to silence people is more likely to radicalize them than actually succeed in silencing them.
> but it does help prevent them from turning other people into bigots.
Except that it doesn't. If anything, it's a lot easier to play the "redpill normies" game when you don't even _have_ to phrase your arguments clearly and logically, because censorship gives you plausible deniability. Innuendo, Straussian irony, dog-whistling etc. etc. become the name of the game, and the most truthful, open and pro-social ideas are put at a serious disadvantage.
> A huge number of people have fallen into terrible thought patterns after being exposed to these ideas through youtubers and faux academics.
Maybe, but surely you would agree that there is a useful middle ground between sites like YT which actively promote the most outlandish and click-bait ideas (flat earth, conspiracy theories, discredited urban legends etc.) in the name of "engagement", vs. government-mandated censorship.
I don't think people should say bigoted things. But more importantly, I don't think people should think bigoted things.
If you shame and ostracize people into not saying bigoted things, but you don't solve the thinking bigoted things problem, then all you've done is hide the problem, and you're suddenly surprised when a bigot gets elected to the White House or a bigoted police officer murders someone and gets away with it (again). Censored bigots don't magically stop being bigots--they just go form their own communities.
The way you get people to stop thinking bigoted things is not by silencing it, it's by explaining to people why they're wrong. Even if you don't change the mind of the bigot you're talking to, you might change the mind of someone else who is listening to or reading what you say.
I'm not campaigning for people's right to be cruel and impolite. I'm campaigning for conversation that brings the truth to light and improves our collective thinking.
And to be clear, I'm also not saying that free speech means you should have no consequences in any context. If you say something racist at work you should absolutely be fired. I'm saying that we need places where people can say racist things so that those racist things can be confronted with the truth.