And yet it is possible to make simulations extreme enough I would not opposed to banning them. There are some things that should not be normalized in society.
It shouldn’t be payment processors doing it unilaterally, I’ll grant that. But I’m not (and I’m sure a great many more of a silent majority) wholly opposed to the outcome.
I don't know what your definition of "actual" free speech is but there are certainly limits to free speech even in the US[0].
And those are just explicit limits. Try supporting Palestine on a college campus or mentioning women or gay people in any government funded scientific publication, or finding a book portraying pro-LGBT content in a library or a school curriculum that portrays slavery in a way that "makes white people feel victimized" in the South.
The limits to speech (in USA) depends (roughly) on if it's intended to incite imminent lawless action and is likely to do so.
Actual speech is communicating ideas or opinions, even distasteful or unpopular ones. The fact that university morons throw a riot if anyone disagrees with them (many such cases), does not affect your right to do so.
Denmark passed a law in 2023 that makes public burning, tearing, stepping on, or defiling holy texts illegal. It's informally called the Quran Law, because everyone knows who doesn't tolerate any criticism of their religion at all. This is one of many limits on speech in Denmark. In my view, speech is either free or it isn't, hence my argument that only USA has free speech.
thats a historical view, but not the most useful now that the second american revolution has happened.
things that lightly annoyed the president is now the decider between legal and illegal speech in the US, and the punishment is death, because nothing the president does that could be part of their regular responsibilities like talking to secret service assasins, can be considered in court proceedings.
Isn't freedom of speech just "you're allowed to say whatever you want", and not "you're entitled to the use of taxpayer dollars to help distribute your message" or "you're entitled to have the government force children to read your message"?
I love a good “POTUS” conspiracy as much as the next guy but The Late Show cancelation is a simple money game, the show was bleeeding money. If the show was profitable the chance of it being cancelled are same as me dating Beyonce
I would agree with this if this was factual, the money cbs paid via 60 minutes nonsense is same if you were fined a dime for something you did today. so not “massive” but whatever is the exact opposite of massive
The show itself was losing viewership cause who the F watches late night TV these days?
is said late night TV actually expensive though? they have a payong audience, and the whole thing is an ad for whoever is selling a book or movie release.
whats gonna replace that slot that people are gonna watch? a blank screen?
if you have a car that is a money pit you and your family keep bleeding money on to make repairs, would you keep making repairs or get another car? all of TV is a simple money game, shows get canceled, new ones spruce up, they get canceled, some are super successful but run their course, others stink from the get-go. what is going to replace the late show? not sure but whatever it does it better make money for cbs or the same faith awaits it
Personally, I won't miss these games either, but it just seems like such a slippery slope to normalize achieving societal/political goals through exerting pressure on infrastructure companies instead of through democratic means.
I totally support this type of pressure being exerted on companies involved in editorializing and providing an audience (e.g. I don't think Valve should be required by law to carry any form of content, just like a publisher can't be forced to print any content it doesn't agree with). But infrastructure, due to being both fundamental to doing business and generally living in a society and very often being at least regionally monopolistic in nature, should be open to anybody that's acting within the law.
And conversely, if something seems ethically or morally unacceptable to a rule-based society, what ought to change is the law.
That's all assuming a functioning democratic and political process, of course, but it generally seems to be possible even in the US, with its strong protections of speech, to limit certain types of speech under obscenity laws, so I don't really get the desire to outsource this inherently political process to private corporations.
That's a complicated question I'd like to see settled via legislation and in courts interpreting (and sometimes overturning) these laws rather than in a private corporation's compliance and/or PR department.
It definitely should not be determined by corporations because they not elected and almost untouchable by the individuals affected.
The state is a less bad alternative but bad (unintentionally harmful) and malicious (intentionally harmful) decisions are generally not punished either.
When people set rules which affect others, they should also be held accountable.
And in general, rules limiting a person's behavior should only exist when that behavior can be _proven_ to be harmful.
They should be determined by individuals capable of critical and logical thinking and without anything personal to gain from the rules.
They should not be determined by individuals who have antisocial traits or who are indoctrinated into various belief systems which are founded on preferential treatment (such as religion).
The term “silent majority” has a very specific political meaning.
But, in what way do you think those opposing “extreme” content being consumed by their fellow citizens are silent? State governments across the country are clamoring to censor all sorts of things, presumably to satisfy their constituents.
There is a world of nuance separating "normalizing" and "banning" something though, that's simply a false dichotomy.
I'd wager most "normal" people would recoil at the idea of eating excrement and, for all my open-mindedness, it's probably not something I'd actively endorse. But banning it is on a whole other leaf. Things can and should be allowed to exist on the fringe.
Otherwise we're moving towards the subject of the T.S. Eliot quote where "everything that is not forbidden will be compulsory, and everything not compulsory will be forbidden."
For the people who disagree: would you really be interested in seeing Child Grooming Simulator 25 on steam? I think we can almost all reasonably agree that at least this sort of content should not be sold on there.
I don't have to be "interested" in seeing something on steam to disagree with nkrisc.
I don't care about 99.9%+ of the games on steam, that doesn't mean I want them gone.
When we start saying "no content restrictions besides illegal stuff", your hyperbolic question becomes legitimate in a way that it's not when we're talking about Doom.
Are you saying the people who are petitioning Steam to remove porn games are playing the porn games themselves and simultaneously pretending porn games don't exist on Steam?
It shouldn’t be payment processors doing it unilaterally, I’ll grant that. But I’m not (and I’m sure a great many more of a silent majority) wholly opposed to the outcome.