I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it - unless it's on social media

[LaureBerthaud]

When did our society lose the doctrine of I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it?

It feels like we can't disagree on here, Twitter, other forms of social media without insults starting to be hurled. Threats being made. People declaring YOU ARE WRONG. END OF.

Have we lost the ability to think critically, to tolerate differences of opinion and respect differing views?

To use the current hot potato, it's commonplace just now to see transphobic 'opinion' posted by people who do not consider themselves transphobes, and do not intend to be transphobic, but that context doesn't alter the content of the tweet. If somebody says something transphobic, it's understandable why some other people might get upset and attack them for being a transphobe

That really depends on what you consider to be transphobic. There is much disagreement on that.

"Can they be trusted to stop the single promotion of the black cause when another race becomes the repressed instead? This is why we need to keep a sense of cynicism and independent thought and make sure everything is up for debate."

Really? This just screams to me of the quotation that goes something like "when we ask for equality they think we want revenge"

And many of the aims are quantifiable - no disproportionate numbers of black people in prison; proportionate representation in higher education, the workplace and governing bodies; and the quickest wins of all could be to stop killing black people in routine police encounters where white people walk away, no?

I wasn't calling out your bias, I was suggesting you examine it, as we all should

@Stressing I disagree. We have quantifiable milestones in statistics and data. For example it’s been proven that if you are black you are more likely to be imprisoned, earn less money, live in substandard accommodation etc - and there are also fewer black CEOs and less black representation on boards.

I would argue that BLM could measure reaching their objectives by monitoring these statistics.

Some sources below if interested.

BLM about dedicated to improving the lives of black people and getting them on equal footing. It’s revealing that you seem frightened of that.

www.prisonreformtrust.org.uk/WhatWeDo/ProjectsResearch/Race

www.equalityhumanrights.com/en/race-report-statistics

But the point of this thread is that things are going awry because there’s a perceived ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ way to think and by suggesting I have a bias is undermining my argument because it suggests i am / my views are flawed somehow. fwiw, I am an ardent environmentalist but I don’t like extinction rebellion. I’m an ardent supporter of women’s rights but I don’t sign up to feminist activation. I abhor racism but I’m wary of blm. I just don’t like organised activism because it’s manipulative and is someone else’s version of a cause and not my own. No one has a monopoly on opinion, not even BLM not that you’d believe it looking at the unquestioned loyalty it gets.

And many of the aims are quantifiable - no disproportionate numbers of black people in prison; proportionate representation in higher education, the workplace and governing bodies; and the quickest wins of all could be to stop killing black people in routine police encounters where white people walk away, no?

If we talk about the US then can you show more black people are being killed because it is a grey area, same as it is in the UK, if we are talk about proportionate representation with regards to the US then there a yet unrefuted statistic that starts with 13% and is being labelled as a dogwhislte.

As for stats we don't really have any, but the Guardian did publish this during labour years. www.theguardian.com/uk/2006/oct/22/ukcrime.race

Lets not pretend either that stop and search is a chicken and egg situation, nor that white working class males are the at risk group in schools for under achieving.

Social economic situations are at play here, there is a reason why all media want to divert away from the talk of class and are trying to stoke the fires of arguing among ourselves

Is that the point of this thread? Not for me, but I thought the OP's post was ill-considered.

But if you want to be able to post on social media without being contradicted, you have to set your account to private and block any followers ¯\(ツ)/¯

Actually @stressing, in you're saying BLM gets unquestioned loyalty but here you are questioning them. Does your opinion not count? Are you really sure you've thought this through?

Sparkle, I appreciate the links. I’m not arguing against racism, I’m saying BLM aren’t being transparent. Yes they could measure their success against those criterium, but they aren’t. I won’t throw myself behind anything that isn’t able to make itself accountable. And anyway I get worked up over everything to this degree not just BLM it’s just they’re the movement of the moment so I’m really not being that bias 😁

Sorry I meant I’m not arguing against anti racism! Time to quit!

If you are saying racist, homophobic, misogynistic, sectarian, "not in the spirit" things then you can be told to go elsewhere. If you are making hate speech, the law will be on your ass.

No doubt you and yours expect to define these terms too.
The playground norm on this site is that if I don't like what's being said then I'll going whining to teacher, ie HQ, and get the poster put onto the naughty step.

Respect people's right to have an opinion that differs from your own. Challenge their views, discuss, debate. We can do this without vitriol and no platforming

You ever been to the brexit board?

If you commit wrong think you are indeed at risk of having the police at your door asking what you are thinking. Did free speech ever exist?

"Police have recorded 120,000 cases of 'non-crime' hate incidents - despite accepting they are not illegal - as judge warns of chilling effect on free speech"

Sorry haven't RTFT just responding to the OP
Living in the age of SM, free speech is obviously more hard to balance. It's complicated by the fact that people, especially on the internet, are more willing to share some downright awful and offensive points of view - offensive towards other groups of people in particular.

The other issue is the perception of platform, power and influence, and the idea, rightly or wrongly, that people with large audiences are to be held to a higher level of accountability than ordinary people when expressing opinions, and this becomes a minefield because somebody will always be offended no matter what you say.

What I do find really interesting is peoples dedication to expressing their views on SM. People really seem to want to be right on SM, sometimes above all else. So in that sense I agree with you. But, there really is, in my opinion, a level of intolerance that should be shown towards intolerance itself.

As with everything it isn't as black and white as social media makes everyone want things to be.

I would say that I personally object to going out of your way to make any group of people feel subjugated based on who they are. Like the trans women issue so often discussed on MN feminism boards; there are specific issues that are genuinely in need of discussion and exploration but when you reduce that to criticising the mere existence of an individual or group of people, then it does tip over into being phobic/genuinely offensive and no, I would not defend anybody's right to broadcast those types of opinions.

Also another huge downfall to SM is the huge and often deliberate lack of context. Like so many things are reported that would be awful if they were accurate, but they aren't. There is tons of stuff like that, like up thread the GF thing and the previous conviction; him being a criminal does not negate in any way what happened to him nor does it negate the systematic problems that led to his abuse and death, and people will claim to agree with that, but then, why bring it up? What's the motivation and context?

It's just one of the many forms of victim blaming you see on SM today. It's a pretty toxic environment and even though I only actually use MN and reddit for any type of social media, often that still feels too much as it does seem so inherently toxic, unfortunately.

I think most people have an inherent need to be right and they don’t go on SM to learn and be enlightened. They go on it to reaffirm their beliefs.. and win.

There are echo chambers all over the internet, which doesn’t help. These help reinforce a sense of belonging and make it even more likely that people will look to sign up whole heartedly to one school of thought or another.

In RL, due to social constructs we are forced to at least pretend we are taking part in a fair exchange when socialising. The gloves then come off when it’s screen time.

I am extremely concerned at how the Far Right have weaponised and are seeking to abuse misguided notions of free speech as a way to defend racism. Especially since right wingers and racists are far less tolerant and more abusive, eg using hostile abuse tactics and trolling to try to silence any opinion they don’t like.

It’s monstrously hypocritical. Look at the Meghan threads. For years posters who defended Meghan would be met with coordinated mass abuse attacks (eg posters using four or five different name changes in one thread just to call the Meghan defender a stupid cunt over and over), get abusive DMs, have their personal info doxxed, have nasty threads started about them on other sites. It was just relentless, non-stop abuse designed to silence any opinion other than “Meghan is an uppity evil whore.” The second MN announced they were banning the N word and banning more overt personal attacks, the posters who have spent the past three years gleefully trying to bully and silence other posters, suddenly discovered that “censorship” exists.

The Far Right (and MN is a very, very right wing forum) are such special snowflakes. The think someone expressing an opinion that their comment is racist is some kind of unbearable form of oppression and censorship, and that anyone not agreeing with them is a violation of their human rights.

MN is left! But yes agree, the free speech thing should only apply to a rational opinion and not verbal violence. I think the whole world needs to agree on the difference between the two.

I don't think the left are covering themselves in glory tbh. Look at Priti Patel, I don't like her but racism is racism surely? Or is it only a bad thing when it's someone we like? You may not agree with JKR but death threats acceptable?

I think free speech needs to be free speech, no ifs or buts. Society can easily get into collective hysteria and decide certain opinions are "bad" (like in Communist Revolutions, Nazi Germany, and more recently the trans debate) and then you get into a slippery slope where suddenly only a narrow range of thoughts are acceptable.

People should be able to express anything, within as much reason as possible, and people should also be able to debate a point without resorting to personal attacks or "this is wrong because society says it's wrong" but no actual good reason as to why. Being gay and women having rights used to be wrong, and people that spoke out were vilified, so I don't think it's up to anyone to be the gatekeeper of what "acceptable" opinions are. Societies change. Many opinions widely accepted now could do a 180 and in 100 years be seen as offensive. So we need to keep discussion as free as possible to actually be able to work these things out and think them through.

No doubt you and yours expect to define these terms too.
Huh @mrsBtheparker? The host gets to define the terms.

and MN is a very, very right wing forum

This is the funniest thing I’ve ever read on Mumsnet.