Bonum Certa Men Certa

[Meme] What Free Speech Ought to Mean

posted by Roy Schestowitz on Jan 13, 2025

Free speech means letting the guy on the right decide; Free speech means letting TikTok game elections for the far right

RMS facepalm

The rude people who attack Richard M. Stallman (RMS) do not believe in Free Speech, except perhaps their own. That's a gross distortion of the concept.

In his political notes RMS said that "Zuckerberg announced that Facebook and Instagram will replace fact-checking with a system of not-really-checking similar to what ex-Twitter does. The announcement was made in ways that signaled the intent to become a loyal part of the corrupter's tame media organizations."

He had previously said: "Zuckerberg has found a way to make a deal with the corrupter, by reducing moderation on his platforms. That means more of the things that many useds actively dislike about Facebook — those useds who don't recognize its fundamental wrongs which may not always be evident."

Last month he also said: "Facebook donated a million dollars to the corrupter's inauguration. I suppose this is not a crime, but it is in effect a bribe."

It does not sound like RMS suggests anything other than quitting social control media in general. He said some things to that effect. Yet there seems to be some semi-official account in https://mastodon.xyz/@rms.

The main issue with social control media is that usually the users aren't paying clients, so there's no incentive to respect what they have to do/say/upload and generally speaking it's a bit like some shared toilets. It's odorous and unpleasant. The bigger, the worse. A lot of conflicts. Gross!

RMS has long used his own site to 'microblog' and rightly so... it seems to have aged well (the decision not to "meet people where they are" but instead invite them to his site, which is hosted separately from GNU and the FSF).

Freedom of speech is somehow or somewhat of a relative thing; the old saying "Your Liberty To Swing Your Fist Ends Just Where My Nose Begins" comes in handy as an analogy. People saying out loud anything they want is metaphorically similar to exercising violence without expecting a response/challenge. Some people went further and asserted that Free Speech means you can say what you want without anyone responding to it (or even the right to an audience!). As if to say, "I lost my free speech" because someone said my speech was "crap" or "didn't accept my views". Or "nobody listens to me", so "I lack free speech".

A culture of healthy and polite dialogue is metaphorically the same as respecting national borders and responding to violent actions in a proportionate way.

We've long been of the opinion that free speech-dom means everyone can say a bunch of crap - even really dumb and offensive crap - but we in turn deserve and reserve to right to freely and bluntly respond to that crap. This way everyone has a say and hopefully at the end better ideas will triumph (not by just muzzling/banning people).

Other Recent Techrights' Posts

Professor Eben Moglen on How Social Control Media Metabolises Humans and Constrains Freedom of Thought
Nothing of value would be lost if all these data-harvesting giants (profiling people) vanished overnight
Debian Left Twitter (MElon "X"), We Think the Free Software Foundation (FSF) Should Do the Same
What would the FSF really lose if it stopped posting there?
 
Links 07/02/2025: Amazon’s Stock Collapses and US Government Being Dismantled (Still)
Links for the day
Gemini Links 07/02/2025: Mid-level Details and Simple Code
Links for the day
Links 07/02/2025: US 'Demolition Crew', e-ID Loopholes, and Sanctions
Links for the day
Social Control Media is Narcissism
Nowadays there's a lot more literature and even press coverage explaining the harms of Social Control Media
statCounter Sees GNU/Linux Share Doubling in China Over the Past Year
It'll be interesting to see what data in the coming months shows
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, February 06, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, February 06, 2025
Richard Stallman (RMS) Confirms Next Week's Talk in Europe
He gave at least 2 talks in Europe last month
Nationalism As A Service (NaaS) by Microsoft Azure, Gutting the US Government for Profit
Will Microsoft be receiving bailouts as a reward for all this?
Rumours of IBM Layoffs Apparently Confirmed Yesterday, IBM Canada Consulting Impacted (as Rumoured)
when IBM has layoffs we must also read it as Red Hat layoffs
Tons of Anti-Linux 'Articles' Published by Bots (LLMs), Maybe Microsoft's
Upon closer inspection, all this FUD turned out to be LLM garbage
Gemini Links 06/02/2025: Voicemail Sucks and Night of Lights
Links for the day
Ubuntu Desktop Director of Engineering Has Only One Blog Post. It Promotes Microsoft Windows.
Remember that even 15 years ago (more or less, maybe 16 years ago) Canonical appointed a a 'former' Microsoft manager (Spencer) to lead Ubuntu on the desktop
Links 06/02/2025: YouTube Takedowns Out of Control, 'DOGE' Breaking Laws
Links for the day
IBM Red Hat on "era of cloud computing", pushing "hey hi" (AI) hype in Microsoft Azure
LLM slop might actually be more benign than Microsoft promotion
Corruption and Rule-Breaking Prevail at the European Patent Office (EPO), Europe's Second-Largest Institution
The law does not really exist at the EPO; it can be perceived as merely a "recommendation"
statCounter: More Countries Where Windows is Around 1% "Market Share" (People Have Moved to Android/Linux)
in some nations Windows is already 1% or less
404 Media Says "Workers at NASA Told to Drop Everything to Scrub Mentions of Indigenous People, Women from Its Websites" But There's Also Accessibility in the Firing Line
In the case of abandoning accessibility, everyone stands to be hurt and proprietary software can be brought in to replace standards
When BetaNews Writes Real Articles About "Linux" They Promote Windows
The Web is in a bad state. We need to at least try to correct this.
Gemini Links 06/02/2025: Cynicism and "Real Magic on the C64"
Links for the day
Links 06/02/2025: New Sanctions, Layoffs, and Executive Orders
Links for the day
Distros and Desktop Environments, Devices
GNU/Linux focused
New Rumours of IBM Layoffs in 2025, IBM Consulting Still Struggles, Based on Management
"Hey hi" (AI) has been a common excuse for business failure
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, February 05, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, February 05, 2025
Links 05/02/2025: Kessler Syndrome and News Online
Links for the day
statCounter: Monaco Now 7% GNU/Linux ("Proper")
GNU/Linux, not counting Chromebooks, is on the rise
Many Parts of Google Lose Money
It's quite apparent that many parts of Google - even some that rely on ad revenue or push ads - aren't profiting
European Internet Forum (EIF) is Dominated by American Corporations and Microsoft Lobbyists, Staff Take the Lead
Should the officials over here or the European Parliament pay attention to these people?
Links 05/02/2025: Connection without Connectivity and Unionised Grocery Workers
Links for the day
Just Because People on Top of the Microsoft Pyramid Made a Lot of Money Doesn't Mean Microsoft is Wealthy
The bigger they are the harder they fall
Gemini Links 05/02/2025: Learning, Madman Ruling a Mad Country, Back in Geminispace
Links for the day
statCounter Shows "WIntel" Chasing a Dying Market
Microsoft acts as if it's running out of money
Free Software Foundation, Inc. (FSF) Still Raising Money, Richard Stallman Contributes
total exceeding $430k
A Lot of Stuff About "Linux" in Google News is LLM Slop, Fake 'Articles'
It seems to be getting worse
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, February 04, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, February 04, 2025