This reads like arguing for sake of arguing because calling out nazis as liars about their interest in free speech has got to mean abandoning freedom of speech.

application of ethical principles may change

We could go on and on, but this is a nice summary statement here. Thank you.

Guess what you’re the next iteration of? Technologies change, yet good principles don’t change with them.

Technologies and ethics continuously change and adapt to new technologies, and I’m not interested in discussing the analogies of going from codexes to printed books vs. going from printed hard copies to human-human interactions being hijacked by human-passing bots, because to me these are evidently not comparable.

No one has a monopoly on LLM, bots, or algorithms.

The fact that this discussion is taking place on Lemmy and not Xitter tells plenty about the actual complexities of this story.

no. it’s a “don’t believe them because they are lying” thing.

Free speech is still right: everyone should fervently defend it. Whether they’re sincere about it or not, free speech is indispensable to a liberal democracy.

If you fall into the trap of abandoning basic values from the enlightenment when they make it inconvenient, then you play into their game & help them set back society.

Look, statements like this are very easy to make but nearly impossible to implement in the era of LLM-powered bots riding the Algorithm. Unless you simply give free rein to the bots, which is often the goal and ultimately eliminates actual humans’ free speech. I don’t pretend that I have a perfect solution, but there is sufficient historical evidence to point out the threads’ original statement on absolutistic terms. For the rest, I’ve used the word “some” because not everybody has ulterior motives, but the most motivated ones in the present era tend to.

Fascism is slightly more diverse and thus adds more opportunities for apologists to relativize. Hence the specific choice.

yeah it’s a philosophical question the answer to which changes with the times (like, does free speech/expression even mean the same thing in the 1700s as in the present era where “speech” is delivered and amplified by machines without even the necessity of direct human involvement).

I would have reported the pic for gore, but I think hiding it under spoiler is fair game. What humanity should have learned from this story is that just because ideologies that consider fairness or empathy a weakness might appear viable and effective to grab power quickly, we have plenty of gory evidence that they do lead to the annihilation of millions, including those initially benefiting from them.

I know reading comprehension is harder when you’ve already made up your mind about what I think, but you’re better than this. I hope.:)

I really find it statistically baffling how many times that is the first response…sophisticated sounding titles works for you until you actually have to explain things.

The point of my post is that some of the loudest proponents of free speech have ulterior motives. No more, but definitely no less. I’m not here to relitigate the limits of free speech no matter how hard you want to steer the discussion in that direction.

On the other hand, if you come to discussions with this many preconceived notions and generalizations wrapped in a metric ton of condescension, then perhaps you might be the driver of your own “statistical bafflement”.

America has litigated this multiple times & you had strong arguments from both sides, but in the end free speech won & I believe it was the right choice. I’d suggest you actually study history & those trials a bit more.

You are assuming ignorance from others while projecting ideas from other discussions you’ve had in the past onto my original post. I purposely avoided making any statements on how to approach or resolve the tolerance paradox because it’s complicated. Nazis lying about their affinity for free speech isn’t.

I think they only fear looking weak.

Interesting read.

They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The antisemites have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert.

This is what we see these days. Trump and his followers lying is normalized, i.e., they are not “obliged to use words responsibly”, whereas anybody argues against trumpists is.

They fear only to appear ridiculous or to prejudice by their embarrassment their hope of winning over some third person to their side.

This is what changed since then. They no longer fear being seen as ridiculous or stupid. They embrace it.