Dissident Opinion: Why We Have Freedom of Speech & Why We Don't.

all this hate and violence is being
facilitated by a handful of internet companies that amount to the greatest propaganda machine in history do you believe that facebook is more responsible for anti-semitism as it exists in the world today than the eastern orthodox church do you think facebook has more of a powerful effect in forming people's opinions and people's opinions on this particular political issue than martin luther the founder of lutheran christianity and in large part the founder of protestant christianity which one do you think has been more influential over the last 1 000 years and which one do you think is more influential even right now in terms of people being raised from infancy in these institutions in these churches in schools and high schools and colleges that are created in order to inculcate these religion into children what do you think catholicism protestantism eastern orthodox christianity and oh yeah have you heard of this religion called islam zuckerberg speaks of welcoming a diversity of ideas and last year he gave us an example he said that he found posts denying the holocaust deeply offensive but he didn't think facebook should take them down because i think there are things that different people [Music] this is october 12 2020. suppose you were to go to the website known as facebook.com and search for the term nazi genocide this is now today the number one result because today is the day that facebook has changed its policy reportedly as a result of a personal decision taken by its owner mark zuckerberg oh yeah and look at the number two search result you can't bilderberg is a tyranny yeah the educational power of facebook can hardly be overestimated coordinated by the conference on jewish material claims against germany the hashtag no denying it campaign used facebook itself to make the survivors and treaties to zuckerberg heard posting one video per day urging him to remove holocaust denying groups pages and posts as hate speech zuckerberg said in a blog post monday he believed the new policy strikes the right balance in drawing lines from what is and isn't acceptable speech so this is a reversal of policy you guys probably remember from about two years ago that mark zuckerberg took a stand at the opposite end of the spectrum quote i'm jewish and there's a set of people who deny that the holocaust happened i find that deeply offensive but at the end of the day i don't believe that our platform should take that down because i think that there are things that different people yet wrong i've heard the sound clip and he said a few more words here that might have just been left out he said that it's very difficult to judge people's intent as opposed to judging what they're posting part of the problem here is just that mark zuckerberg is the wrong guy to be making this argument he's an old computer programmer he's just not the kind of guy to give a politically sophisticated statement on this topic nor the type of guy who should be expected to make the right decision neither two years ago nor right now anti-semitism is a problem it's a huge huge problem however the suppression of free speech justified by anti-anti-semitism justified by the opposition to anti-semitism is also a huge problem do you guys remember this video from my channel about two years ago wasn't a huge hit but i was discussing uh the politics and ethics of circumcision and attempts to make circumcision illegal eric klopper is jewish i also am jewish both of us are accused of being anti-semitic on this issue it's no joke eric klopper's life has been destroyed this way it's totally possible my own youtube channel will be destroyed suppressed censored deleted or what have you i think it is serious defamation to accuse eric klopper of anti-semitism he's not anti-semitic he did however create a vitriolic youtube video that harshly condemns circumcision the religious and cultural excuses for it so in large part of course that is going to be a critique of judaism and modern american judaism not just ancient judaism among the israelites so if you don't think this is a limitation of freedom of speech that has real consequences and not just real consequences on individual people's lives like eric clopper but also really negative consequences for the future of democracy the issue of the critique of circumcision is a very palpable very important case i want to pause to mention the problem of calibrating this kind of conflict in our society the issue of anti-semitism and anti-anti-semitism it is a difficult issue but there are worse there are harder there are larger issues i live in canada just looking at this map should serve to remind you that canada really is built on genocide how can you possibly how can you possibly through facebook censorship reverse address or deal with the extent and depth of racism against canada's indigenous people can you imagine what it's like to be an indigenous den a person an indigenous dakota person or an indigenous plains creed person and to deal with the fact that now if you want to get a taxi you have to lie about what your name is when you make the reservation on the phone then when the taxi shows up the taxi driver is going to be racist against you i've seen pakistani and indian immigrants who are intensely racist against the native people and they're driving taxis in canada now canada is now a country where newly arrived immigrants and refugees have a higher status of the indigenous people and they participate in and join in settler colonialist racism against the indigenous people it's a terrible problem and of course places like california australia and so on each have their own tragic tale to tell and these are problems that definitely cannot be solved through the suppression of freedom of speech just as the fundamental problems involved with anti-semitism cannot be solved through suppression all this hate and violence is being facilitated by a handful of internet companies that amount to the greatest propaganda machine in history do you believe that facebook is more responsible for anti-semitism as it exists in the world today than the eastern orthodox church do you think facebook has more of a powerful effect in forming people's opinions and people's opinions on this particular political issue then martin luther the founder of lutheran christianity and in large part the founder of protestant christianity which one do you think has been more influential over the last 1 000 years and which one do you think is more influential even right now in terms of people being raised from infancy in these institutions in these churches in schools and high schools and colleges that are created in order to inculcate these religion into children what do you think catholicism protestantism eastern orthodox christianity and oh yeah have you heard of this religion called islam do you think that there aren't people millions and millions of people who are more influenced by the fact that muhammad the prophet was murdered by being poisoned by a jewish woman you don't think anti-semitism is kind of a big deal within the organized religion of islam and that people have this inculcated into them from their earliest childhood memories all this hate and violence is being facilitated by a handful of internet companies that amount to the greatest propaganda machine in history you don't think you don't think that if you're going to complain about the social and political influence of facebook don't think there are some important comparisons to me there that might might calibrate that claim might put it in a very different sort of perspective zuckerberg tried to portray this whole issue as choices around free expression that is ludicrous this is not about limiting anyone's free speech it is precisely about limiting free speech and i will say again as i've said in numerous videos before i do believe that freedom of speech should be limited the discussion we're having the debate we're having is about how when and where freedom of speech should be limited with what consequences for whom freedom of speech is not freedom of reach yes it is freedom of speech does not consist of the ability for you to sit alone in your prison cell and talk to a wall without being heard freedom of speech in the absence of the ability to reach an audience is meaningless freedom of speech is indeed freedom of reach always has been always will be i actually do think this is a fairly simple issue to address i actually do think it is a fairly simple issue to solve if we can disambiguate what the criteria are whereby we're coming to that solution and they're going to be different solutions for different websites and all of these solutions are going to really involve very muscular government policy it's going to require the writing of new laws when you consider a particular website you have to ask yourself are we talking about a modern day pinnix or are we not talking about something equivalent to the pinx what do i mean here i don't think that etsy.com needs to have freedom of speech if you really think about it if etsy.com were not censoring the results at all if they were not censoring what you are and are not allowed to sell you'd get some really politically provocative results searching for flags on etsy okay so freedom of speech as i've said in a recent video the main challenge is defining speech i think we have to accept that etsy wants to be able to sell handicrafts without dealing with these kinds of political problems they just don't want to deal with it one way or another so that has to be legitimate you have to say okay not each and every website not each and every app on your phone answers to these standards of guaranteeing safety for freedom of speech of creating a space for dissent and protecting the rights of political dissidents that people with unpopular opinions people who may be reviled and criticized for their opinions still fundamentally must be able to reach an audience they must be able to reach critics who are going to disagree with them and inform them to bring about the progress of democracy through the ensuing clash of opposing views but admittedly not each and every website should be regarded as a modern day pnex the second criterion that nobody wants to deal with and again it's already an issue in legislation is that either we're talking about the use of political free speech with editorial control editorial responsibility or we are talking about a situation in which nobody other than the author is responsible the legislation should be rewritten there should be new laws and even new constitutional principles set down about this under both of these categories the main thing we need to legislate away is anonymity if you don't know what i mean by personal accountability and having skin in the game there are examples like this one covered in great length and great depth by the new york times of people whose lives are destroyed by rumor innuendo and reckless allegations stated on the internet sometimes publicly in this case the most damaging allegations were just made through anonymous emails they were able to get justice they were able to go to court because they were able to prove who sent the emails and the person who sent the emails was a citizen of the same country that they were i do not believe in freedom of speech in the absence of personal responsibility for the consequences of your actions if you defame someone you should be legally responsible for defamation currently it's incredibly rare to be able to trace an email to an email account that was registered with someone's credit card so you know who sent the email and you can take them to court and if there's a simple international border involved if this guy who sent these emails had been a canadian or a samoan or a cambodian in another country as you know then all of a sudden there's total impunity even though people's lives really can be destroyed by even the sort of casual slander that has come to be regarded as normal on the internet so yes i am saying that people should be forced by legislation to use their real names if they are going to enjoy the privileges of freedom of speech they must in this sense have skin in the game this is not about limiting anyone's free speech freedom of speech is not freedom of reach we need to cultivate a culture where we engage with one another and we educate one another and we all work our way out of the ignorance that we were born into i can recognize that there are people who grew up in traditional eastern european families whether they're hungarian ukrainian or russian i can recognize that there are people raised with anti-semitism who grew up with this and are still just you know laboring under this ignorance and it really is meaningful for somebody somewhere to reach out to them engage with them and help them overcome that ignorance they were born into overcome those cultural assumptions they were born into and yes the same can be said for lots of people who were raised in muslim families so on and so forth in this sense it's really important to have sympathy for the devil it's really important to recognize that freedom of speech lets these people come out and state their views it shouldn't be anonymous it shouldn't be reckless it shouldn't be in a total absence of personal accountability but then they also can have the potential for personal growth they also have the potential not just to engage others and share their ideas but to have their ideas challenged if you don't believe in that tell me something what do you believe the internet exists for fundamentally what is the point do you think that the internet just exists for us to walk hand in hand from cradle to the grave in the same ignorance we were all born into the internet exists to stimulate you to ask yourself difficult questions and yes so that we can challenge one another with difficult questions of course i understand that people who were raised with this belief that circumcision is something sacred and good and holy and wonderful will find it disturbing we'll find it deeply upsetting to hear eric clopper telling them that no it's something bad and damaging and evil and wrong where is the theater where this issue should be debated if not right here on youtube if not on the internet this is not a debate you can have at the grocery store this is not a debate you can have at speaker's corner this is a debate that really should be broadcast into home to the internet this challenge even if upsetting is something that you should recognize as a valuable form of dissent as part of the progress of science and genuinely part of the progress of democracy