this post was submitted on 26 Feb 2024
35 points (97.3% liked)

No Stupid Questions

35542 readers
1307 users here now

No such thing. Ask away!

!nostupidquestions is a community dedicated to being helpful and answering each others' questions on various topics.

The rules for posting and commenting, besides the rules defined here for lemmy.world, are as follows:

Rules (interactive)


Rule 1- All posts must be legitimate questions. All post titles must include a question.

All posts must be legitimate questions, and all post titles must include a question. Questions that are joke or trolling questions, memes, song lyrics as title, etc. are not allowed here. See Rule 6 for all exceptions.



Rule 2- Your question subject cannot be illegal or NSFW material.

Your question subject cannot be illegal or NSFW material. You will be warned first, banned second.



Rule 3- Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here.

Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here. Breaking this rule will not get you or your post removed, but it will put you at risk, and possibly in danger.



Rule 4- No self promotion or upvote-farming of any kind.

That's it.



Rule 5- No baiting or sealioning or promoting an agenda.

Questions which, instead of being of an innocuous nature, are specifically intended (based on reports and in the opinion of our crack moderation team) to bait users into ideological wars on charged political topics will be removed and the authors warned - or banned - depending on severity.



Rule 6- Regarding META posts and joke questions.

Provided it is about the community itself, you may post non-question posts using the [META] tag on your post title.

On fridays, you are allowed to post meme and troll questions, on the condition that it's in text format only, and conforms with our other rules. These posts MUST include the [NSQ Friday] tag in their title.

If you post a serious question on friday and are looking only for legitimate answers, then please include the [Serious] tag on your post. Irrelevant replies will then be removed by moderators.



Rule 7- You can't intentionally annoy, mock, or harass other members.

If you intentionally annoy, mock, harass, or discriminate against any individual member, you will be removed.

Likewise, if you are a member, sympathiser or a resemblant of a movement that is known to largely hate, mock, discriminate against, and/or want to take lives of a group of people, and you were provably vocal about your hate, then you will be banned on sight.



Rule 8- All comments should try to stay relevant to their parent content.



Rule 9- Reposts from other platforms are not allowed.

Let everyone have their own content.



Rule 10- Majority of bots aren't allowed to participate here.



Credits

Our breathtaking icon was bestowed upon us by @Cevilia!

The greatest banner of all time: by @TheOneWithTheHair!

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 30 points 7 months ago (2 children)

It's still censorship. The distinction is that most private entities can't enforce their censorship with violence.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 7 months ago (2 children)

There's also the fact that you can simply walk away from the business with minimal loss

[–] [email protected] 5 points 7 months ago

Unless they have a monopoly

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago

Unless you're under contract.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (4 children)

Right, I was wondering if there might be a distinct term so that it might be clearer that a private entity's action is not a violation of rights in the sense that a government action might be. Thinking mainly of why xkcd #1357 tends to come up a lot

[–] fuckwit_mcbumcrumble 15 points 7 months ago

I think the key is to make sure you differentiate it from freedom of speech. The 1st amendment only applies to the government censoring you, while censorship isn't exclusive to the government.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 7 months ago

Idiots on the internet are going to idiot - just bop them on the head as soon as they say "Facebook is infringing on muh first ammendment!"

[–] [email protected] 5 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

You may find this post by the eminent First Amendment lawyer Ken White (aka PopeHat on social media) a useful read: https://popehat.substack.com/p/in-defense-of-free-speech-pedantry

As a summary, he distinguishes the different facets of the free speech debate into three categories: free speech rights (FSR), free speech culture (FSC), and speech decency (SD). FSRs are those protected in law and vary depending on country and historical precedences. Whereas FSC manifests itself in how private actors conduct themselves, sometimes very inviting of opposing voices and other times not so much. Finally, SD is closer to social morals, and the application of speech to fight other speech.

If we accept Mr PopeHat's assessment, then the term you're looking for may lay somewhere between FSC and SD, since private entities will have their -- sometimes great/justified/meh/awful -- reasons for declining to platform certain types of speech.

I suppose it may be plausible to describe a private censor as "free speech unprincipled" or "free speech uncultured" if they act within the law but not within the accepted FSC.

[–] RightHandOfIkaros 1 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

Depending on where something like this (cancelling a person, basically telling them they're a social outcast as indicated in the linked comic, etc) happens, it wouldn't necessarily violate constitutional rights, but it may qualify as emotional abuse and some places consider emotional abuse a crime equal to crimes like domestic abuse. It could also be fought in civil court where such a suit would not be considered criminal, which would likely be charged as "Intentional Infliction of Emotional Distress." It could be argued that the person is being treated too harshly or something, but that would be on a case by case basis.

Just because a constitutional right is not being violated doesn't mean something is right or okay to do, or that you are somehow safe from legal repercussions if the person decides to sue over it. Of course, the same legal action is also available to a person that feels offended/hurt/distressed/etc by something someone else says. You can sue for anything, afterall.

Businesses, just like people, also have the right to trespass people off of their private property, and I would imagine that forums and message boards of companies would be legally considered like such private property. So if someone is violating the rules, maybe they could try to sue for emotional distress but that case would be near impossible to win. The business/forum owner has the right to tell anyone they want to leave for any reason they want. Thats how it is.