[HN Gopher] Speech is violence? Not if we want a liberal, intell...
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Speech is violence? Not if we want a liberal, intellectual society
Author : andsoitis
Score : 207 points
Date : 2023-02-15 21:27 UTC (1 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (bigthink.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (bigthink.com)
| poszlem wrote:
| Although violent speech may seem hard to swallow, the alternative
| of censorship has been shown throughout history to be far more
| detrimental. It seems that the younger generation has not fully
| understood this fact, but hopefully they will come to understand
| it through the lessons of others, rather than through their own
| experiences.
| eastbound wrote:
| Has it? I see censorship as being extremely successful
| nowadays. It seems to keep the world together nowadays. Imagine
| we'd publish everything we know, many people would oppose.
| snerbles wrote:
| History has shown us repeatedly - the next generation will only
| learn when the heel of the boot they cheer for is crushing
| their own throats.
| fsckboy wrote:
| > Although violent speech is unacceptable
|
| speech _inciting_ violence is unacceptable. Speech isn 't by
| it's nature violent--although it might be called forceful--and
| I would refrain from ever calling speech violent.
|
| (and even speech inciting violence turns out to be acceptable
| to a majority of people in conditions where you say you want to
| kill (for example) a pedophile or a racist, or when you're
| writing a Declaration of Independence or a French National
| Anthem (La Marseillaise) because everybody agrees, the Tree of
| Liberty must periodically be watered by the blood of tyrants!)
|
| my comment is a little bit all over the place, but what I'm
| trying to say is, you should never agree to call speech
| violence but always put in the word "incite/ment"; and at the
| same time it's difficult to make any broad or universal
| statements about speech without discovering it's a complex
| subject. Humans are good at imagination or conceptualizing
| hypotheticals, and we have the capacity for violence, so it's
| very difficult to say what someone can and can't say, usually
| the listener understands implicitly but sometimes the person
| listening does not have your interstests at heart, has their
| own motives, or is plain nutso.
| kneebonian wrote:
| Did you guys know it is illegal to say "I want to kill the
| President of the United States of America". It is illegal it is a
| federal offence, it's one of the only sentences that your not
| allowed to say.
|
| Now it was okay for me to say because I was telling you it was
| illegal to say "I want to kill the President of the United States
| of America", because I wasn't saying it, I was telling you it was
| illegal to say it, like a public service.
|
| But it is not illegal to say "with a mortar launcher", because
| that's it's own sentence. It's an incomplete sentence but it may
| have nothing to do with the sentence before that. So that's
| perfectly fine, perfectly legal.
|
| It's incredibly illegal, extremely illegal to go on the internet
| and say something like "The best place to fire a mortar launcher
| at the White House would be from the roof of the Rockerfeller
| Hewitt building, because of minimal security and you'd have a
| clear line of sight to the President's bedroom." That's insanely
| illegal, ridiculously illegal, recklessly illegal, horribly
| illegal, extremely felonious, super illegal because they will
| come to your house in the middle of the night and they will lock
| you up. Extremely against the law
|
| One thing that is technically legal to say is "We have a group
| that meets Friday's at midnight under the Brooklyn bridge and the
| password is sic semper tyranus"
| Bytewave81 wrote:
| A true classic. RIP Trevor Moore.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eg3_kUaYFJA
| [deleted]
| perihelions wrote:
| Here's a moral quandary for the pro-safety side. Should people be
| allowed to talk about pogroms? If there's a mass killing of one
| group of people by another group of people, and people are
| allowed to discuss it, that would probably lead to more strife,
| and retaliatory killings. If "speech likely to lead to violence"
| is what you want to criminalize, then true reporting of ethnic
| violence should go at the top of the list, no?
|
| Alternatively, if you would permit that, then how would you
| imagine drawing a line?
|
| (This isn't random theorizing; I drew this one straight from this
| week's newspapers. Specifically the leader of India's complicity
| in an ethnic massacre in 2002; his government's censorship of
| reporting about that; and their supporters' defense that "this
| kind of reporting will lead to social disharmony and more
| violence". I don't think this is a weird edge case: I think it's
| an archetype of *real* free speech issues that are common and
| recurring. What are worth testing your moral theories against).
| luckylion wrote:
| But having a <ul> without display:block and adding custom
| oversized dots that aren't aligned to the line - we can all agree
| that is violence, can't we?
| halkony wrote:
| At first I thought it was noscript causing a formatting issue
| but when I turned it off it was still messed up lol.
|
| Agreed
| kelseyfrog wrote:
| > In contrast, physical violence is an uncomplicated, universal
| offender. A punch to the face hurts everyone.
|
| What a completely deranged take. It's easy to conceive of a
| thought experiment that absolutely destroys this perspective.
|
| Imagine that I've applied lidocaine to my face and you punch me.
| Then someone points out that because I didn't feel pain, that
| "It's ok to punch other people in the face."
|
| The author's argument makes about as much sense, ie: none.
| throwawayacc6 wrote:
| >Imagine that I've applied lidocaine to my face and you punch
| me. Then someone points out that because I didn't feel pain,
| that "It's ok to punch other people in the face."
|
| You're entire strawman is invalidated because the author wrote
| "hurt", not "pained". Even if you didn't feel pain, a punch
| still hurts (injures) your body. QED.
|
| Hurt: To cause physical damage or pain to (an individual or a
| body part); injure.[0]
|
| >What a completely deranged take.
|
| Reread your comment over again if you want a completely
| deranged take.
|
| [0] https://www.wordnik.com/words/hurt
| stonogo wrote:
| In this strawman argument, are you asserting that lidocaine
| prevents the punch from causing physical damage?
| kelseyfrog wrote:
| If the author was implying damage, he did an incredibly poor
| job at conveying that. He said "hurt" not "damage."
| stonogo wrote:
| You're going to have a frustrating time if you use that
| kind of pedantry to build a bad-faith interpretation of the
| proposed argument. "Joey got hurt in the boxing match" does
| not generally mean he was offended by the color of his
| opponent's shorts, and when someone talks about a punch in
| the face hurting someone they're using the broadest sense
| of the word 'hurt,' which is commonly accepted to encompass
| all of emotional pain, physical damage, and the deleterious
| effect of violence on any given community. Choosing the
| specific definition that makes the argument weakest isn't
| really productive unless you're just looking to get mad
| about something.
| vannevar wrote:
| I don't think that most of the people who equate hate speech with
| violence are literally requesting assualt charges be brought.
| They are calling for boycotts and de-platforming, both of which
| fall well within the bounds of the "marketplace of ideas." While
| there is indeed no right to _not_ be offended, there is also no
| right to be listened to, and no right to artificially amplify
| your speech on someone else 's dime. We live in a world where the
| mechanisms of mass communication are held in private hands---
| there is no digital public square, regardless of what techno-
| libertarians might have you believe. So there are speech winners
| and there are speech losers, chosen generally by capital. If you
| want to change that and have a public platform, you'll have to
| consider the digital equivalent of communism. Until then, you'll
| have to live with mass suppression of speech just as you live
| with mass amplification of it. They are two sides of the same
| coin.
| tomjen3 wrote:
| >While there is indeed no right to not be offended, there is
| also no right to be listened to, and no right to artificially
| amplify your speech on someone else's dime
|
| When you prevent somebody from being on a platform, you also
| prevent others from hearing what that person has to say.
|
| As for amplification, it is not amplification to show me your
| tweets with #stabledifussion when that is what I search for -
| it is the entire point of Twitter.
| vannevar wrote:
| It absolutely is amplification---without Twitter, there would
| be no tweet to search for. And never forget, the actual point
| of Twitter is to deliver value to its shareholders.
| commandlinefan wrote:
| > I don't think that most of the people who equate hate speech
| with violence are literally requesting assualt charges be
| brought
|
| Well, they're literally doing this in the UK - people have and
| are being arrested for offensive speech.
| giantg2 wrote:
| They may not be requesting assault charges, but they may be
| requesting pain and suffering compensation, or using "unkind"
| comments as leverage in a divorce.
| RobotToaster wrote:
| If you can lose your job for what you say, only the
| independently wealthy have freedom of speech.
| vannevar wrote:
| Now you're getting it. Why do you think they call it "fuck
| you money?"
| autokad wrote:
| > I don't think that most of the people who equate hate speech
| with violence are literally requesting assualt charges be
| brought
|
| First off, they are. but if you are saying: loose your job and
| ability to make a living, losing your ability to speak in
| public, fuck me give me those charges then!
|
| you are backing tyrannical ideas while trying to pretend you
| are just being reasonable.
| jtr1 wrote:
| Someone reporting something you said to your employer:
| freedom of speech
|
| Your employer declining to continue your employment: freedom
| of association
|
| Advocating for a university to not host your talk: freedom of
| speech
|
| A university not hosting your talk: freedom of association
|
| and so on.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| So it's legal, but you're definitely the Bad Guy.
| anigbrowl wrote:
| No u, since we've apparently abandoned argument in favor
| of just making claims.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| Also, contacting someone's employer is far from a slam
| dunk freedom of speech case. It could easily run afoul of
| several criminal statutes, not to mention the obvious
| civil liability.
|
| One more nail in the coffin for Internet anonymity.
| vannevar wrote:
| The tyranny isn't coming from me, it's coming from the people
| that own the company that's firing you. And the "tyrannical
| idea" you're referring to is called capitalism, and it has
| its upsides and its downsides. Don't shoot the messenger.
| kneebonian wrote:
| It's equivalent to saying you can have a gun you just will go
| to prison if you ever use it.
| vannevar wrote:
| Being banned from Twitter is not going to prison, it's
| being kicked out of a private club.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| You can't really call it a marketplace of ideas, then, if your
| response is [metaphorically] a SLAPP. E.g. people weren't just
| critical of Justine Sacco, they tried to _destroy_ her. Tell me
| again who the bad guys are?
| anigbrowl wrote:
| So what you dislike is groups of people coordinating their
| speech, it appears. How is this any different from
| coordination using price signals?
| rootusrootus wrote:
| So you're okay with mob justice, then? You feel pretty
| confident they'll never come for _you_?
| Zetice wrote:
| How should a marketplace of ideas work, then?
| rootusrootus wrote:
| You attack the idea, not the person.
|
| If you go after the person, you are not participating in
| any marketplace of ideas, you're now the one committing the
| violence.
| RajT88 wrote:
| > I don't think that most of the people who equate hate speech
| with violence are literally requesting assualt charges be
| brought.
|
| Right. I can't think of anyone I have come across in liberal
| media. But you can always dig _someone_ up that takes any given
| position.
|
| > While there is indeed no right to not be offended, there is
| also no right to be listened to, and no right to artificially
| amplify your speech on someone else's dime. We live in a world
| where the mechanisms of mass communication are held in private
| hands---there is no digital public square, regardless of what
| techno-libertarians might have you believe.
|
| All correct. The people who want it to be one way or the other
| (depending on their political leanings) usually are conflating
| constitutional protections _from the government_ as being
| applicable _to /from everyone and everything else_.
|
| If you're screaming on Twitter that (some racial group) is bad,
| and people tell you to shut up, they are allowed to do so under
| the first amendment. You're allowed to do so under the first
| amendment. Twitter can totally ban you based on what they deem
| acceptable behavior, because the first amendment doesn't
| regulate private companies (just the government).
|
| If you're calling for the extermination of that particular
| group, the government can charge you under US Code for inciting
| violence:
|
| https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/373
|
| ...But you have to prove intent, which is notoriously hard to
| do, and notoriously easy to get off scott-free from. ("I was
| being bombastic, I didn't think anyone would LITERALLY try and
| exterminate said group")
| a_shovel wrote:
| > _They are calling for boycotts and de-platforming, both of
| which fall well within the bounds of the "marketplace of
| ideas."_
|
| This is a really obvious idea that people seem to have a lot of
| trouble understanding, especially when the framing of the
| conversation drifts toward "cancel culture".
| [deleted]
| OkayPhysicist wrote:
| On the other hand, you can't have your liberal, intellectual
| society if you allow people to go around making credible threats
| of violence, which are "just speech" if you subscribe to the
| speech-is-speech, violence-is-violence approach. If you have to
| wait until the threat is realized, then any group capable of
| having members take the punishment for individual acts of
| violence can grant credibility to making threats to others.
|
| To avoid their society devolving into "rule by overt threat of
| violence", people typically agree that someone who says "I will
| shoot John Doe between the 3rd and 4th ribs with the FAL I have
| in my attic using this .308 round at 2:13 pm tomorrow as he walks
| his kids to school like he does every day except Tuesday, unless
| he pays me $500" should be able to be stopped, violently if
| necessary, _before_ they have a chance to actualize their speech.
|
| Arguing whether that speech is, in-of-itself, violence comes down
| to the messy semantics of trying to define violence. The fact
| that it is unacceptable is relatively unanimously agreed upon. So
| the question isn't "Can speech be unacceptable?" it's "What kind
| of speech is unacceptable?".
|
| The example I gave was a specific, actionable, and credible
| threat against an individual, by the individual that intended to
| carry out the threatened violence. I'll assume most readers would
| mark that as "acceptably provoking punishment". Where it gets
| messy is when you start shaving off qualifiers. For example,
| someone stating "I'm going to kill all the programmers, and
| here's how" is potentially making a credible and actionable
| threat, but against a non-specific group of people. Is that
| worthy of punishment? What about someone with a large audience
| saying "It is our moral obligation to eliminate the programmers
| by _any means necessary_ ", maybe wink-winking and nudge-nudging
| at a guillotine in the background. It's not specific, and they're
| not saying THEY are going to be the ones to commit the violence,
| but it's still a little hinky.
|
| In my opinion, that last one is probably the source of most
| discourse around "is speech violence". Most everyone is okay with
| suppressing more overt threats than that. It's when you get to
| that line that people break down into the camps of "people using
| their influence to benefit by threatening violence in a plausibly
| deniable way" warranting (self)defense or not.
|
| So saying "but my free speech" or "it's just speech" isn't really
| a compelling point. We all agree that some kinds of violent
| speech should be suppressed. The question is simply where the
| line gets drawn.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| > The question is simply where the line gets drawn.
|
| Not that simple. First you have to decide _who_ gets to draw
| it.
| OkayPhysicist wrote:
| In a "liberal, intellectual society", surely each individual
| would choose for themselves where the line is drawn, and then
| vigorously debate amongst themselves until a position wins
| out in the marketplace of ideas, right?
|
| Nothing says liberal and intellectual like unquestioningly
| handing off decision making to some authority figure.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| Probably we need to throw out the term 'marketplace of
| ideas' becomes it implies there is only one.
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| I didn't think that credible threats of violence or harassment
| were protected yet they've become almost normalized.
| fallingfrog wrote:
| The kinds of censorship that really bothers me is when people
| like Ron deSantis use the power of the state to force people like
| university professors to say specific things and muzzle them from
| saying other things. That's _actual_ government censorship.
| robertlagrant wrote:
| Can you give an example of compelled speech?
| fallingfrog wrote:
| "Today, Florida honeymoon registry company Honeyfund.com,
| along with workplace diversity consultancy Collective
| Concepts and its co-founder Chevara Orrin filed a federal
| lawsuit to block enforcement of Florida's HB 7, the Stop WOKE
| Act. The law purports to "fight back against woke
| indoctrination" by, among other things, barring employers
| from engaging in speech that "advances" certain "concepts"
| regarding race, sex, religion or national origin. The suit
| names Gov. Ron DeSantis and other Florida officials as
| defendants and challenges the statute as unconstitutional
| under the First and Fourteenth Amendments for barring the
| expression of viewpoints disfavored by government officials
| and chilling a wide range of speech in workplaces. "
| worried4future wrote:
| This is barring them from saying specific things, not
| compelling them to say other things, do you have an example
| of any compelled speech?
| fallingfrog wrote:
| https://www.propublica.org/article/desantis-critical-race-
| th...
| worried4future wrote:
| where in the 5000 word article does it talk about compelled
| speech, I skimmed it and searched and I don't see anything.
| pclmulqdq wrote:
| Those professors and teachers are employees of the government.
| Like it or not, that puts them under the same umbrella as
| police officers, fire fighters, and others. Government
| employees are very much restricted in what they can say and do
| when they are on the clock.
| ausbah wrote:
| no it doesn't, technically sure but universities are suppose
| to be free from controlled speech like this. see why tenure
| and academic freedom exist
| fallingfrog wrote:
| Amazing how quickly people will pivot to "actually, it's ok
| to censor campus professors" as soon as the censored ideas
| are ones they don't like.
| pclmulqdq wrote:
| It's amazing how quickly people will pivot to "censorship
| of professors" when they are talking about laws that
| control the curriculum of elementary schools.
|
| I don't dislike professors or teachers at state schools,
| but I understand that they work in an institution that
| effectively does not offer academic freedom. If you are a
| professor, you can work at any other institution in the
| country, other than the 50-100 or so that are run by
| states, and you will have all the academic freedom you
| want. If this country goes to a major war, a large number
| of those professors are likely going to be told to work on
| something war-related, because they are agents of the
| state.
|
| If you are a teacher, who was _actually_ targeted by the
| education control bills in FL, you arguably don 't have
| enough training to have really have earned academic
| freedom. Until about 5 minutes ago, nobody argued that they
| did have academic freedom. Curricula are there for a
| reason.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| > the 50-100 or so that are run by states
|
| FWIW, I think you're off by an order of magnitude, more
| or less.
| somesortofthing wrote:
| I think this article makes a key mistake that I see almost all
| commentators make of visions of free speech less radical than,
| say, the first amendment: They consider only the direct effects
| of speech on those who hear it. If you accept this, it's very
| easy to(correctly) respond that it's not the state's job to
| police mere offense, no matter how grave it may be. Some people
| who try to make criticisms of a radical free speech regime(such
| as the NYT author this article mentions) also fall into this
| trap, but I think the much more compelling for limiting speech is
| less about harm done by speech to listeners and more about
| incitement of physical harm.
|
| It's very, very easy to communicate in ways that encourage and
| incite violence(be it direct physical violence or denial of the
| means to live a dignified life), especially against groups
| against whom such violence is already normalized. Not all speech
| that does incite violence is intended to, but this fact also
| lends plausible deniability to people who do explicitly want
| violence but know that it's socially unacceptable to call for it
| directly. There is the danger of being overzealous with what
| speech to limit, but at the same time, it's undeniable that a
| _lot_ of money and attention is flowing to ever-bolder
| provocateurs whose only possible goal is to escalate existing
| tensions and iniquities to violence in service of their political
| aims. Taking such people at their word on their intentions is
| dangerous, and those who do so have no right to act surprised and
| claim innocence when actions and rhetoric escalate past the point
| they 're comfortable with.
| commandlinefan wrote:
| Even if I agreed with you (I don't), moving harm further and
| further away from actual speech and trying to divine what the
| speaker is "actually saying" and punish them for that leads to
| Stasi thought police every time it's tried.
| kneebonian wrote:
| > but at the same time, it's undeniable that a lot of money and
| attention is flowing to ever-bolder provocateurs whose only
| possible goal is to escalate existing tensions and iniquities
| to violence in service of their political aims.
|
| Then you should defeat them in the marketplace of ideas and be
| able to counter their facillous words. To suggest otherwise is
| to stand in a position where you claim that some people are
| incapable of intelligently reasoning about something and that
| another superior individual should be able to police what they
| hear.
|
| If someone says racist hateful things you're argument is that
| people should not be allowed to listen to it because it is a
| "bad thing" and other people who aren't as wise as you shoudlnt
| be allowed to hear it because they might act violently.
| fllsdf wrote:
| It is effectively impossible to reason people out of
| positions they have not reasoned themselves into.
|
| The market place of idea struggles in my close friend group
| where we have sort of a tradition to do these kind of
| debates, despite us being very close since almost a decade,
| and educated above our national average.
|
| It's a nice enough idea, but i dont see how to make it work
| in a space where money amplifies speech, and some types of
| speeches have been a negative to specific groups of people
| throughout history.
|
| The obvious long term solution is more education but that
| requires money, so the obvious short term solution is
| censorship
| kneebonian wrote:
| > It is effectively impossible to reason people out of
| positions they have not reasoned themselves into.
|
| Some people cannot be trusted with certain ideas so a more
| superior individual must control what they can hear.
|
| Do you realize how patronizing and condescending you sound
| about your friends by the way when you clearly imply your
| ideas are well reasoned and factual and theirs are the
| result of psychology manipulation?
| giraffe_lady wrote:
| The marketplace of ideas is a completely made up thing to
| justify a stance of political non-action against real harms.
| People who are for example planning a mass shooting against a
| demonized minority are not participating in such a market, to
| the extent it exists at all.
| ReptileMan wrote:
| And the people planning shooting against a demonized
| majority?
| giraffe_lady wrote:
| They're probably not in that "market" either! Thanks for
| asking this totally sincere, clarifying and helpful
| question.
| somesortofthing wrote:
| > Then you should defeat them in the marketplace of ideas and
| be able to counter their facillous words. To suggest
| otherwise is to stand in a position where you claim that some
| people are incapable of intelligently reasoning about
| something and that another superior individual should be able
| to police what they hear.
|
| How do I defeat someone "in the marketplace of ideas" when
| the person inciting violence is backed by a multi-billion
| dollar media conglomerate, an undemocratic government, or a
| police union/sheriff gang?
|
| > If someone says racist hateful things you're argument is
| that people should not be allowed to listen to it because it
| is a "bad thing" and other people who aren't as wise as you
| shoudlnt be allowed to hear it because they might act
| violently.
|
| It's not about being "wise", it's about incentives. Plenty of
| people directly and benefit from violence against
| marginalized groups, and it's in their interest to accept and
| encourage the normalization of violence against those groups.
| Media provocateurs have an impeccable sense of what they need
| to say and what ideas they're communicating when they speak.
| Plausibly deniable provocation works so well precisely
| because the target audience understand the real message
| perfectly.
| 0xcde4c3db wrote:
| This isn't really about whose ideas are more correct. The
| strategy is, as Steve Bannon infamously put it, to "flood the
| zone with shit". They're basically doing a DDoS against the
| marketplace of ideas.
| [deleted]
| bnralt wrote:
| I think everyone is able to see how the other side incites
| violence, but thinks the rule doesn't apply to them. For
| instance, there was a lot of rhetoric about how dangerous it
| was when Donald Trump was elected - that it would be the end of
| Democracy, that fascism was coming to the U.S., that we could
| well end up with concentration camps and nuclear war. The man
| who shot up the Congressional baseball game[1] was a member of
| pages dedicated to how threatening Trump and the Republicans
| were. Are the people who said that responsible for his attempt
| at political assassination?
|
| I guess you can argue that. But most people I see bringing up
| "stochastic terrorism" suddenly say that those types of
| violence don't count. It's not just that this outlook is
| controversial - I've yet to meet anyone who has applied it
| consistently.
|
| [1]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congressional_baseball_shootin...
| ReptileMan wrote:
| >denial of the means to live a dignified life
|
| That is not violence, not sure why you put some weasel
| statements in.
| jrm4 wrote:
| Lawyer here, and this definitely strikes me as one of a
| surprising number topics in which, the law has for some time,
| already a very effective and useful way to get at this concept.
|
| Sure, speech can be harmful and hurtful, to the point that
| someone should get punished for it. But the law has generally
| done very good job of reminding us that this tends to be a VERY
| NARROW possibility, i.e. the harm has to be very specific and
| directed and measurable.
| dqpb wrote:
| If you convince someone not to have kids, is that harmful?
| seydor wrote:
| how can convincing (not coercing) be harmful? What's the
| definition of harm
| jojobas wrote:
| You can convince someone to go shoot up a school, good luck
| arguing convincing is not coercing in court.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| It really depends on what you did to convince them. See
| the top level post.
|
| The law does not only care about causality. It is also
| cares free speech, reasonable interpretation, and
| comparative responsibility.
|
| I could craft and publish an argument School shootings
| are in fact a positive good a we should have more of
| them. I am legally in the clear, even If someone finds my
| argument convincing and goes and shoots up a school
| because of it.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| The court won't need to get that far, convincing itself
| falls under conspiracy without having to conflate it with
| coercion.
| OkayPhysicist wrote:
| That strongly depends on how you convince them. If you
| one-on-one talk someone into shooting up a school, that's
| conspiracy. If you tell a large audience that teachers
| and children are a scourge upon society that must be
| eliminated and count on some small fraction to be
| unhinged enough to connect the dots, well, that's just,
| like, your opinion, man.
| seydor wrote:
| it's not coercing though
| gowld wrote:
| One action is a crime, the other (in)action isn't.
| password11 wrote:
| [flagged]
| dqpb wrote:
| Please don't break the lawyer
| [deleted]
| msla wrote:
| And yet people don't get how narrow the Brandenburg test is:
|
| https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/brandenburg_test
|
| > The test determined that the government may prohibit speech
| advocating the use of force or crime if the speech satisfies
| both elements of the two-part test:
|
| > The speech is "directed to inciting or producing imminent
| lawless action,"
|
| > AND
|
| > The speech is "likely to incite or produce such action."
|
| [snip]
|
| > The Supreme Court in Hess v. Indiana (1973) applied the
| Brandenburg test to a case in which Gregory Hess, an Indiana
| University protester, said, "We'll take the fucking street
| later (or again)." The Supreme Court ruled that Hess's
| profanity was protected under the Brandenburg test, as the
| speech "amounted to nothing more than advocacy of illegal
| action at some indefinite future time." The Court held that
| "since there was no evidence, or rational inference from the
| import of the language, that his words were intended to
| produce, and likely to produce, imminent disorder, those words
| could not be punished by the State on the ground that they had
| a 'tendency to lead to violence.'"
|
| > In NAACP v. Claiborne Hardware Co.(1982), Charles Evers
| threatened violence against those who refused to boycott white
| businesses. The Supreme Court applied the Brandenburg test and
| found that the speech was protected: "Strong and effective
| extemporaneous rhetoric cannot be nicely channeled in purely
| dulcet phrases. An advocate must be free to stimulate his
| audience with spontaneous and emotional appeals for unity and
| action in a common cause. When such appeals do not incite
| lawless action, they must be regarded as protected speech."
|
| And because I also see this doctrine over-applied online:
|
| https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/fighting_words
|
| > In Texas v. Johnson (1989), the Supreme Court redefined the
| scope of the fighting words doctrine to mean words that are "a
| direct personal insult or an invitation to exchange
| fisticuffs." There, the Court held that the burning of a United
| States flag, which was considered symbolic speech, did not
| constitute fighting words.
|
| > In R.A.V. v. City of St. Paul (1992), the Supreme Court found
| that the "First Amendment prevents government from punishing
| speech and expressive conduct because it disapproves of the
| ideas expressed." Even if the words are considered to be
| fighting words, the First Amendment will still protect the
| speech if the speech restriction is based on viewpoint
| discrimination.
|
| The page I linked to links to multiple law review articles on
| the subject:
|
| http://openscholarship.wustl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article...
|
| http://scholarship.law.marquette.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?art...
|
| http://via.library.depaul.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=28...
|
| Suffice it to say: If someone online claims a speech act isn't
| protected due to the fighting words exemption, no it isn't.
| Xeoncross wrote:
| Hello, I was just born yesterday and now I'm shocked to
| discover every single person I've met so far has hold some
| view I dislike.
|
| Theoretically, how much outrage do I need to manufacture to
| get the legal system to ignore the Brandenburg test and
| prosecute today's flavor of thought villain?
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3OV4VaNW4FU
| ARandomerDude wrote:
| Say the word "trans" in a sentence and put an "x" on an
| otherwise common adjective and no other effort is required.
| version_five wrote:
| I expect the above will get flagged but it's correctly
| pointing out that we've effectively brute forced some
| loopholes that allow normal protections on speech and
| thought to be bypassed. The fact that you "can't" say
| certain things ends up shifting the game to claiming your
| opponent has said one of those certain things.
|
| Edit: to wit, the parent post claim in ridiculous action:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34811787
|
| Edit 2: and just to clarify my point, once these
| loopholes get found, people jump on them and aggressively
| exploit them. Look around this thread for the kinds of
| rhetoric people that oppose free speech are using. What
| would they have subbed in 15 or 50 years ago?
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| > The fact that you "can't" say certain things
|
| what fact is that? who enforces the "can't" ?
| [deleted]
| csdvrx wrote:
| > the law has generally done very good job of reminding us that
| this tends to be a VERY NARROW possibility, i.e. the harm has
| to be very specific and directed and measurable.
|
| Here in the US, yes. In the rest of the world (like, EU) they
| aren't very specific.
| garbagecoder wrote:
| Most people don't realize this and they also don't realize that
| equal opportunity laws also apply to white, male, christians,
| etc.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| 150 dB speech could melt someone's face.
| Swizec wrote:
| Violates noise level laws so that's covered.
|
| Whether such laws are commonly enforced ... well we know from
| modified motorcycles that they're not.
| catach wrote:
| Charge for the melting, not the method used to achieve the
| melting.
| Xeoncross wrote:
| Even doing regular speaking can be an issue:
| https://www.cleveland19.com/2023/02/10/ohio-attorney-
| general...
| WaitWaitWha wrote:
| Did you see the face before? Could it be self defense?
| Joeboy wrote:
| > few liberal-minded commentators seemed eager to say Rushdie was
| entirely without fault
|
| This does not match my recollection. As I recall things, Rushdie
| was vigorously defended by the left, which at the time quite
| liked the idea of freedom of speech. At least in the UK, can't
| speak for anywhere else.
| DubiousPusher wrote:
| I would say he was quite vigorously defended by liberals. Since
| the 1970s there pretty much hasn't been such a thing as the
| left, especially in Rushdie's hayday of the 80s-00s. If there
| was, I doubt it would've spent much time worrying about the
| fate of a bourgeoisie fantasist.
|
| Nothing against Rushdie btw. I loved the Satanic Verses. But
| institutional journalism (which provides the fundamental model
| most people use to understand Anglo politics) has conflated the
| terms left and liberal. And while I respect the drift of
| language as natural and intrinsic to culture, this misplacement
| has created a silly situation in which hypocracy, action and
| in-action are misattributed. Because these are two groups
| (overlapping in some cases) but distinct in a fundamental way.
|
| In fact, I would say articles such as this are entirely flawed
| in that they don't grasp this distinction because they take
| institutional journalism's political narrative way past its
| power to describe reality.
|
| Edit: BTW, this affects conservatives and "the Right" as well.
| Most of the people that rise to the top of the Rupblican and
| Tory parties are effectively "liberal". Most would not abolish
| civil liberties, equality before the law, etc. Just about
| everyone elected to government in both the UK and the US in all
| parties sit on a spectrum of liberalism. Mostly they just
| disagree about what year the government needed to stop doing
| things to create a "liberal" society.
| tunesmith wrote:
| Sorry, can you expand? I'm not sure what you meant by "this
| term": free speech? And which two groups: offensive vs
| abusive speech? Which distinction?
| cuteboy19 wrote:
| [dead]
| tmnvix wrote:
| I was too young to remember the surrounding events, but I do
| know that Rushdie's close friend Christopher Hitchens has
| spoken about being turned away from his leftist roots because
| of the lack of support for Rushdie from many on the left.
| jzb wrote:
| My recollection, which could be faulty, was that people sided
| with Rushdie but there was a "but he probably shouldn't be so
| provocative" attached to it. So that tracks with the "entirely
| without fault" bit, as I remember it.
|
| However, that's based on my memory from the "buzz" around the
| book and the fatwa when I was a high school senior. I could
| easily be misremembering or maybe took too strong an impression
| from a specific op-ed or talk show. Finding copies of coverage
| as it was happening is a little tricky.
| jojobas wrote:
| If there is a group that is likely to be violent at that sort
| of provocation, you very much want to provoke them so they
| can be found out and somehow extinguished.
| smt88 wrote:
| You can't extinguish an ideology, and someone who has been
| murdered is already murdered even if you do.
|
| By your insane logic, we should put kids out on the street
| by themselves to catch child predators.
|
| Sometimes the safety of the threatened party is more
| important than finding out who wants to harm them.
| jojobas wrote:
| Yes you can, that requires some balls (such as not
| allowing fucking Hizb ut-Tahrir run schools). You'd think
| it violates the free speech principle, but smart people
| have that covered by the paradox of tolerance.
|
| Also we put fake kids online and young-looking cops to
| lure predators all the time for that exact reason.
|
| As long as there are people wishing to "behead those who
| offend Muhammad", there should be an offensive Muhammad
| cartoon on every street light.
| LastTrain wrote:
| That isn't my recollection at all, can you provide an example
| of a mainstream publication or politician attaching "he
| shouldn't be so provactive" to their support. And if you
| can't, why would you go on believing it?
| ejb999 wrote:
| https://cdn.theatlantic.com/media/archives/1994/03/273-3/13
| 2...
|
| "Salman Rushdie's rights as an author are absolute and
| ought to be inalienable. A free society does not ban books.
| . . . But it is preposterous to pretend that the first
| principle governing the publication of Satanic Verses is
| the last word on the subject. . . . Mr Rushdie is entitled
| to abuse the religion in which he was reared and must be
| protected against those who want to intimidate him into
| silence. [Guess the conjunction] But the idea that we all
| have a duty to applaud his calculated assault is a novel
| interpretation of the liberal obligation."
| bryanrasmussen wrote:
| the only thing I remember was then President Bush calling it a
| bad book while defending its freedom of speech.
|
| But yes he hardly qualifies as liberal-minded.
| geysersam wrote:
| Wtf since when do presidents give book reviews?
| nibbleshifter wrote:
| He probably read it to see what all the fuss was about.
|
| I did. Its not a good book. Rushdie is a fucking boring
| writer.
| tomlockwood wrote:
| "In nations where millions of people hold diverse beliefs, who
| gets to decide exactly when speech becomes "harmful" and which
| people should be protected from offensive or critical speech?"
|
| I don't know, maybe we could all get together and collectively
| decide with some kind of voting mechanism??? Or, if voting every
| time is too onerous, we could elect a "representative" to stand
| in for our views? Just a thought!
| tempnow987 wrote:
| But are we allowed to even discuss the topics - or will folks
| be burned / punched for even discussing the ideas?
| tomlockwood wrote:
| Who isn't allowing us to discuss the topics?
| HonestOp001 wrote:
| The news media, journalists, anti- whatever activists.
|
| Look at coronavirus and the lock step nature of journalism
| when people said the truth about distancing not being
| effective, keep the schools open, etc. people were banned
| from Twitter, YouTube pulled down videos and / or bd
| special pop ups to tell you to be wary about this person's
| point of view.
| tomlockwood wrote:
| And yet, I see this sentiment constantly and this point
| of view discussed.
| poszlem wrote:
| Yes, it's a great idea to let people decide what is and isn't
| true. We know that the more people decide something the better
| decision they make, that's why mobs of people are known for
| their cold and rational approach to issues.
|
| We could even go one step further and establish the
| dictatorship of the proletariat and they could decide what is
| and isn't true. We would have an office, let's call it General
| Directorate for the Protection of State Secrets in the Press.
| Glavlit in short.
| tomlockwood wrote:
| Ok, we can vote to allow individuals to instead unilaterally
| decide what is or isn't true, a system which also has zero
| problems! People are, after all, known for their cold and
| rational approach to issues.
| HonestOp001 wrote:
| Tyranny of the majority is the problem with this.
| tomlockwood wrote:
| We can absolutely vote to dissolve this representative
| democracy and have as little tyranny as possible!
| gizmo wrote:
| This article is too long and says too little.
|
| The real debate about free speech is about finding the right
| balance between harms caused by speech and harms caused by
| censorship.
|
| It's about the distinction between highly protected forms of
| speech like journalism, ideas, and protests/strikes, and
| undesirable speech such as incitements to hatred,
| slander/harassment, spam, and predatory speech.
|
| As a society you have to figure out which kinds of speech is
| deserving of broad platforms (talks at universities, interviews
| on national TV), which kind of speech should be downranked but
| not banned, and which kind should result in outright de-
| platforming or even prosecution.
|
| The "speech is violence" rhetoric just means that speech has
| actual consequences and that we should look at these consequences
| instead of unthinkingly taking an absolutist free speech
| position. Free speech is never an absolute, and as anybody who
| has spent a lot of time online knows, there cannot be free speech
| without moderation (i.e. censorship).
| kneebonian wrote:
| Yes but the problem turns out that no matter how you define it
| whatever criteria you use to restrict speech will eventually
| become redefined to mean. "What those in power currently
| dislike."
|
| It's why the first amendment is their to recognize speech
| should not be limited because if it ever is, it will never stop
| being so.
| gizmo wrote:
| The first amendment doesn't protect literally all speech.
| Never has, never will. And your assertion that restrictions
| on speech (e.g. banning spammers) will inevitably lead to
| some kind of authoritarian dystopia is purely speculative.
| hbn wrote:
| Person A: "Speech causes violence!"
|
| Person B: "How so?"
|
| Person A: _proceeds to beat Person B until he stops talking_
| akomtu wrote:
| If A could beat B, he wouldn't resort to such rhetoric. Person
| A has a repressed desire to bully that manifests as this
| passive-aggressive fake politeness.
| anigbrowl wrote:
| This is false. Sometimes rhetoric is deployed to mask
| incapacity, sometimes it's just a delaying tactic - eg to get
| person B nervous or to allow time for person A's accomplices
| to close in.
| jojobas wrote:
| Before going violent you want to frighten as many opponents
| opponents into submission - violence has a cost even to the
| stronger party.
|
| Also group A has the power to subdue group B by other means
| than violence.
| giantg2 wrote:
| "To be sure, that doesn't mean that deliberately offending people
| for its own sake is morally acceptable, or that people should be
| entitled to use speech to incite violence, harass, or threaten."
|
| The difficulty is knowing what the intent was. Usually there are
| ways of "non-violent" communication. But it seems a lot of it is
| subjective.
|
| By far it seems the most restrictive places are primary and
| secondary schools.
| henrikschroder wrote:
| > The difficulty is knowing what the intent was.
|
| It's not a coincidence that the postmodern thoughts that
| underpin a lot of this bullshit simply does away with intent,
| declaring it to be completely useless, and saying that the only
| thing that can be used to judge a message is how it affected
| the recipient.
|
| Combine that with "words are violence", and you can manufacture
| physical abuse out of thin air.
|
| It's really not the way forward for progressivism.
| __derek__ wrote:
| I never associated Hilary Putnam with postmodernism, but I
| suppose he could have been affected by something in the air
| while writing The Meaning of 'Meaning'.[1]
|
| [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hilary_Putnam#Semantic_ext
| erna...
| DubiousPusher wrote:
| > It's not a coincidence that the postmodern thoughts that
| underpin a lot of this bullshit simply does away with intent
|
| Please make the connection between the disregard of intent
| and any rigorous definition of "post-moderism". Genuinely I
| don't see it.
|
| I think the degradation of intent is more at the hands of
| those who have used it as a shield than anyone else. We've
| seen entire regions of the world thrown into chaos without
| consequence. Why, because the responsible parties didn't
| intend the chaos. At a certain point it gets a little thin.
|
| What's imporant here is scale. Yeah, if you say something
| that rubs someone the wrong way, they should be able to have
| a conversation with you about your intentions and weigh those
| in their judgement. But what if it keeps happening. How long
| does someone else need to value your intent? 10 times? 100
| times? Forever?
|
| And of course when we get to things that affect people's
| lives on a much more material basis, maybe its good that we
| stop counting intent for so much. Maybe what we need is for
| decision makers to get a little more cautios because they
| will actually feel some consequences if they really screw up
| a lot of people's lives.
| wwweston wrote:
| Postmodernism _absolutely_ does not deny intent. In fact,
| motivation behind texts /speech (as well as interpretation by
| readers/hearers) is such an important part of it that you
| can't really _do_ postmodern analysis without accounting for
| motives.
|
| The closest thing I can imagine for any kind of defense of
| your statement is that postmodernism will not let the
| declared or conscious intent of the speaker _absolutely_
| constrain a text. The logical distinctions between "not
| absolutely constraining" and "declaring it to be completely
| useless" should be clear. And the idea that people don't
| always declare their intent accurately should also be
| uncontroversial.
|
| Really, postmodernism is essentially very big elaboration on
| Sinclair's observation "it is difficult to get a man to
| understand something, when his salary depends on his not
| understanding it."
| 99_00 wrote:
| "Speech is violence" doesn't exist as a principle in modern
| western societies. It's a slogan and call for a coordinated mass
| political attack against an identified target.
|
| It is applied by political partisans to attack their enemies and
| not applied to themselves or their allies.
|
| It's cynical, crass, mass political power put into action.
| Reluctant participants are dragged along under the implied threat
| that they will be targeted because "inaction is complicity" or
| some similar slogan.
| [deleted]
| PaulHoule wrote:
| In 2023 that 'speech' could well be spam generated by ChatGPT.
| 'Free speech' isn't the right model to describe coordinated
| inauthentic communications, spam, agenda spamming,
| disinformation, etc. In case where capacity to receive messages
| is limited, communications can be vandalism if not violence.
| commandlinefan wrote:
| Every possible alternative you could suggest is worse.
| [deleted]
| airhack wrote:
| [dead]
| Zetice wrote:
| Sigh, every single time this comes up, people gloss over the part
| of freedom of speech that involves free association.
|
| I'm free to say, "i hate <thing>", and you're free to refuse to
| associate with me as a result of that. It's so simple. The
| government can't, but you can.
|
| As long as we all agree with that, then yeah freedom of speech is
| great, you just don't get to stop applying it when you feel
| satisfied.
| rajin444 wrote:
| This argument always comes up too and you end up with certain
| people trying to force others to bake cakes a certain way. The
| whole idea of "protected classes" spits in the face of free
| speech.
|
| I think free speech is a noble goal but can only really exist
| when we don't live in a zero sum world. Until then:
|
| > "When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean.
| Neither more or less." Alice responded to Humpty Dumpty, "The
| question is, whether you can make words mean so many different
| things?" Humpty Dumpty retorted: "The question is, which is to
| be master? That's all."
| keerthiko wrote:
| this article, like every right-wing "free speech and free
| thinking advocacy" article, twists some realities and cherrypicks
| consequences.
|
| When one steers clear of the legally defined targeted and
| intentional "hate/harmful speech" that is mentioned in another
| comment, it is pretty much allowed in most of the modern western
| world. And in 99.99% cases, no one is entitled to any response
| they are legally not permitted to (such as assassinating a
| civilian).
|
| But free speech has not, does not, and never should mean "speech
| free of consequences." It makes no sense why the people who are
| hurt or offended by any "free speech" shouldn't do anything they
| are legally entitled to in response to said speech or speaker.
| For example, "cancel culture" doesn't seem like a problem to me.
| It's a pretty reasonable and sensible response by people who
| disagree with opinions shared by individuals with large platforms
| taking liberties to hurt people.
|
| To me societal responses such as that are a balancing force that
| has evolved from the rapid pace of platform growth and opinion
| sharing in the era of social media and the internet. These
| responses help create an equilibrium, wherein as someone's
| platform grows too large, a certain outsider group is likely to
| take serious issue with some of the associated opinions, and
| exerts a controlling force on it. In very very rare cases, it can
| create an unstable equilibrium that ends up very polarizing, such
| as the 2016 US election.
|
| But usually it spawns an opposing extreme to a large-platformed,
| relatively extremist stance, such that the rest of the populace
| can self-distribute on the spectrum between the two, and slowly
| society will stably move towards the more progressive and just
| end of the spectrum.
| luckylion wrote:
| > For example, "cancel culture" doesn't seem like a problem to
| me. It's a pretty reasonable and sensible response by people
| who disagree with opinions shared by individuals with large
| platforms taking liberties to hurt people.
|
| Would you feel differently if it wasn't about canceling those
| who "hurt people" (where we again would need a definition of
| what is violent speech that hurts)? Like, if some group went
| out to cancel people because of their skin color, religion,
| sexual orientation, political persuasion, gender etc, would
| that also fall under "reasonable and sensible"? After all,
| these mobs would be just as offended by some person's
| reach/platform/existence as the ones who are doing the
| canceling now.
| devmor wrote:
| "Would you feel differently if some imaginary scenario that
| isn't happening were instead happening?"
|
| What exactly is the point of asking this? The answer is
| obvious and it isn't what's happening.
| keerthiko wrote:
| For the sake of this discussion, I'll define "cancel" as in
| "cancel culture". It would be to "boycott their activity,
| discourage others patronizing them, and prominently proclaim
| you do not agree with them or want to support them
| financially or the growth of their platform, with the aim of
| aligning collective action to reduce their influence".
|
| > Like, if some group went out to cancel people because of
| their skin color
|
| Are you, by any chance, referring to racism? This flavor of
| "cancel culture" transcends my definition in a lot of ways
| (often involving physical violence, unjust law enforcement
| incarceration, employment discrimination and more).
|
| Also it is as old as modern global civilization, far
| predating the modern discourse about free speech, and yes, I
| dislike it. And so we as a society exert some amount of
| opposing force in response again, by "canceling" the racists
| in turn. This feedback loop continues for generations, and we
| slowly (hopefully) trend towards a less racist society.
|
| So how do I feel about it? I dislike racism, but it exists
| today as part of an ecosystem of forces that seems reasonable
| to me.
| giraffe_lady wrote:
| "Would you feel differently if this thing were different?" ya
| maybe why do u ask.
| llbeansandrice wrote:
| > would that also fall under "reasonable and sensible"?
|
| No, because discrimination against someone ("canceling" them)
| for their race, religion, or sexual orientation is explicitly
| illegal in many circumstances.
|
| You should put more effort into your strawmen.
| danans wrote:
| > Consider these statements:
|
| > Jesus is not the son of God. All nonbelievers are evil and
| going to hell. Pornography is morally acceptable. Women should be
| forced to wear hijabs. American veterans who fought in Iraq are
| war criminals. The detainees at Guantanamo Bay deserved to be
| tortured. Capitalism is inherently exploitative, and all wealthy
| people are morally compromised. Communism is an evil,
| totalitarian ideology that killed millions of people.
|
| The biggest problem with this analysis is that it treats the
| speech as separate from the power and reach of the person saying
| them, downplaying the utterances as just information detached
| from the real world context in which they are used.
|
| On any given day, you can probably find a mentally ill person on
| the streets shouting a number of those things, but people aren't
| listening.
|
| When someone with significant influence, as Yiannapolis was,
| starts spurting bigotries and abusive speech, the scrutiny on
| their speech should be greater.
| [deleted]
| jzb wrote:
| If we want a "liberal, intellectual society" we absolutely have
| to consider some speech "violence."
|
| To use one current example: The people pushing the idea of trans
| people as "groomers" is violence. It is not an intellectual
| debate, it's not necessary to entertain in order to preserve free
| thought, etc.
|
| The goal of that speech is to other trans people and it endangers
| them. Tolerance of that kind of speech ensures that trans people
| cannot participate equally in society when there's no
| consequences for trying to stoke hate and encourage stochastic
| terrorism.
|
| At some point, if we cannot agree that things like that are
| unacceptable I don't see how we ever move forward.
| gazpachotron wrote:
| [dead]
| TheFreim wrote:
| > To use one current example: The people pushing the idea of
| trans people as "groomers" is violence. It is not an
| intellectual debate, it's not necessary to entertain in order
| to preserve free thought, etc.
|
| The idea that it's "violence" to oppose child abuse proves that
| the point, speech being "violence" is absurd.
| teolandon wrote:
| Did you misread something in the parent comment? They were
| talking about pushing the idea of trans people as groomers,
| in general. Trans people existing doesn't mean they're
| performing any type of child abuse.
| michaelanders wrote:
| [dead]
| kneebonian wrote:
| Yes some people employ terms to other people based on religious
| belief or skin color, should it be acceptable to "other" people
| by calling them Christofacist? Or suggesting that we should
| #killallmen?
|
| Why should prefixing a proposal with the phrase "trans"
| suddenly allow one to invalidate other people's rights?
|
| And before you say that is extreme, hypothetical or doesn't
| count because it comes from a position of power my own
| ancestors were driven out of their homes in 4 states and had an
| extermination order issued against them by the state of
| Missouri based on people abusing free speech against them.
| fallingfrog wrote:
| When a message board or user is kicked off a platform, it's never
| for "saying the wrong thing" or "political correctness". It's
| generally because they organized targeted campaigns of
| harassment, doxxing, swatting, and other kinds of behavior that
| violated the terms of service.
|
| Take this example:
|
| https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/internet/cloudflare-kiwi-farms-...
|
| "At least three people have died by suicide after becoming
| targets of Kiwi Farms harassment campaigns, according to Vice. In
| 2016, the family of a trans person who died by suicide, Lizzy
| Waite, was harassed by Kiwi Farms trolls for weeks after her
| death. She had posted a suicide note on Facebook."
|
| "Sorrenti, known to fans of her streaming channel as "Keffals,"
| says that when her front door opened on Aug. 5 the first thing
| she saw was a police officer's gun pointed at her face. It was
| just the beginning of a weekslong campaign of stalking, threats
| and violence against Sorrenti that ended up making her flee the
| country."
|
| When we talk about violent forms of speech, this is what we mean.
| Actual crimes.
|
| Note that this website was, in the end, taken down. But the users
| have moved on to other spaces where they organize harassment
| campaigns, such as Libs of Tiktok.
| kneebonian wrote:
| I was recently suspended from a platform for "hate speechd when
| I brought up the Pakistani rape gangs that were operating in
| the UK.
|
| It turns out hate speech means speech somebody hates.
| commandlinefan wrote:
| > it's never for "saying the wrong thing" or "political
| correctness"
|
| My reddit account was permanently suspended for _upvoting_
| vaccine skepticism.
| ejb999 wrote:
| >>When a message board or user is kicked off a platform, it's
| never for "saying the wrong thing" or "political correctness".
|
| That is not what I have seen - what about all the MDs and
| scientists that warned about possible side-effects of the
| vaccine, but since their opinions were not approved by the
| government, were kicked off twitter/facebook etc?
|
| How about the NYPost being de-platformed for reporting on the
| hunter biden laptop story? a story which has now been admitted
| to being true?
| Apreche wrote:
| XKCD 1357
|
| End thread. Please never open it again.
|
| https://xkcd.com/1357/
| vxNsr wrote:
| Of all the asinine takes on free speech this one is the worst.
|
| Freedom of speech is a concept and idea, the government doesn't
| have the right nor ability to police or grant anyone an
| intrinsic freedom they already have. All the government can do
| is lend some of its protections to help prevent others from
| trying to stop you from speaking freely. But as a society if we
| say that your right to free speech only exists in government
| buildings. Well... that's not anything at all.
| Joeboy wrote:
| As well as just being an awful take in general, this is a
| _staggeringly_ inappropriate take on the Rushdie situation.
| [deleted]
| 0xbadcafebee wrote:
| The very first example given, of Rushdie having a fatwa against
| him, is framed as an example of trying to answer "Why should we
| defend his writing?" And the general conclusion is that we owe
| nothing to the "injured" party (in this case, Muslim clerics).
|
| But the Muslim clerics issued their own violent speech. Their
| speech could have led to the assassination of a human being. Does
| _that_ speech owe anything to the injured (read: dead) party?
| Should we allow speech to incite people to kill, "because
| intellectual liberalism?"
|
| The answer, enshrined into law in most nations, is: no. We don't
| let you get away with killing people by incitement of violence.
| Your speech has consequences, and in many cases, you will be held
| accountable; if not by the law, then by vigilante justice. (This
| isn't an argument, it's a fact proved by the opposing argument)
|
| You can choose to make the distinction that if you don't see
| _physical harm_ , that that's not real harm, and thus, doesn't
| matter. But certain speech can in fact cause physical harm. The
| consequences of certain speech, by certain people, in certain
| contexts, can be debilitating, physically painful, nauseating,
| and drive people insane, even to suicide. In many cases it simply
| isn't a choice; your body just reacts to stimuli.
|
| The simplest example is kids who kill themselves from incessant
| traumatic bullying. Even if you think those kids should "toughen
| up" and "just deal with it", that's not how the brain works. Some
| people in society are more vulnerable to suggestion and more
| likely to self-harm than others, and a non-stop barrage of hate
| and intimidation puts them in a traumatic state. The feeling of
| anguish is so much they commit suicide to stop the pain. Speech
| does do real harm, both directly and indirectly.
|
| So, where does that leave us? Arguing over to what degree "verbal
| harm" counts as "real harm"? Waiting for someone to die, then
| deciding who, if anyone, gets the blame? This is a pointless
| morass, because the whole problem can be avoided by just _not
| fucking with people intentionally_. Just like with other crimes,
| sometimes people do harm by accident, and we deal with that in
| many ways. But when people do harm intentionally, that 's a much
| more serious matter.
|
| Thus we don't need this pointless philosophical diatribe to
| justify our ability to cause harm at will. If you're going to be
| a dick, then be a dick. But don't pretend you're doing it to
| defend some high-minded ideal. You're doing it because you're a
| dick, and there is no defense for that.
| baron816 wrote:
| The thing is, people on the far left and the far right DON'T want
| a liberal society. They want authoritarianism. They want control
| to suppress their adversaries.
| disembiggen wrote:
| I am not a liberal. Many people are not. The paradox of tolerance
| is the easy counterarguement to this.
|
| If you choose to never do anything in response to the things
| people say that's your perogative, I on the other hand can listen
| just fine to other people and my response to the things they say
| might be to tell them to stop saying it. "I don't believe you
| should be allowed to say this without consequence" is also a
| thing one can say.
| kneebonian wrote:
| Ah yes the paradox of tolerance. The "our enemies will stop us
| so we must stop them first" argument.
|
| Never found it convincing for some reason.
| breadbreadbread wrote:
| I think this article comes very close to saying "don't let words
| affect you", which is fundamentally impossible to ask anyone to
| do and taken to it's logical conclusion I should also not absorb
| anything in the article. I also think this article also ignores
| the fact that hateful people often use the language of free
| speech to justify their own behavior and to punish their critics.
|
| Everyday on the internet I see trans people threatened,
| disrespected, or legislated out of existence... then the ensuing
| backlash in which people try to reassert the rights of trans
| people... and then the backlash to the backlash is always "these
| woke libs trying to cancel us are the real n@zis". It's
| exhausting. Infuriating.
|
| Some speech suppresses the speech of others. And some people
| don't want to be taught that they are hateful. If you make
| declarative statements that villainize minority groups, you make
| others fear for their safety and it silences voices. That is a
| form of "violent speech", though that term sucks. Free speech
| isn't just about saying anything you want, it's also about
| maximizing the number of voices at the table, and to do that you
| can't just let people get away with saying vile shit.
| listless wrote:
| > Everyday on the internet I see trans people threatened,
| disrespected, or legislated out of existence...
|
| Granted that there is an overreaction happening but that seems
| largely in response to a rather hostile approach from that
| community. "If you deadname me I'll have you banned". "If you
| refuse to use my pronouns I'll have you fired." "If you say
| that there are only two genders I'll drag you".
|
| This is no way to solve problems in a free society. Let's trans
| people be trans. And let people who think there are only two
| genders think that. Forcing a set of beliefs or values on
| people is exactly what we should be trying to avoid.
| disembiggen wrote:
| >If you say that there are only two genders I'll drag you
|
| is my drag not free speech too? If one insults me (or says
| something to me I consider insulting), I should be allowed to
| insult them right back, right?
| colechristensen wrote:
| It doesn't matter if words affect you. Threats are illegal, go
| ahead and prosecute. Disrespect is and should be legally
| protected. Government cannot, will not, and should not be in
| the position of making people like or be nice to you. People
| _should_ be nice to each other but it is _not_ the government
| 's job to enforce this.
|
| Nobody's rights extend to government banning speech that isn't
| supportive. No speech suppresses anybody else's.
|
| Free speech isn't about "free speech for people who say things
| I support".
|
| I'm tired of authoritarians pretending to be liberal.
| gigibec wrote:
| [dead]
| trieste92 wrote:
| > Some speech suppresses the speech of others
|
| Isn't this exactly what you're trying to do here?
|
| > Free speech isn't just about saying anything you want, it's
| also about maximizing the number of voices at the table
|
| Free speech is "about" whatever is in the first amendment
|
| > it's also about maximizing the number of voices at the table
|
| Ahh yes, because the people who try to redefine "free speech"
| like what you're doing are definitely well known for promoting
| this /s
| banannaise wrote:
| > Free speech is "about" whatever is in the first amendment
|
| It is very odd to assert that the morality of speech is
| completely, correctly, and undeniably established in a
| document written 250 years ago that defines the laws of only
| one country.
| kneebonian wrote:
| It derives from philosophical thought and justification
| that rests on the idea that all men are created equal and
| that no one man is above another because of where or how
| they were born and that all men should be allowed to
| operate freely so long as they do not cause harm to others.
| Xeoncross wrote:
| Yeah, we can't have that. That thinking is going to cause
| some obvious issues.
| gazpachotron wrote:
| [dead]
| trieste92 wrote:
| > morality of speech
|
| Where are you getting this morality business from?
|
| Free speech is how it's defined in law, in the USA that's
| the 1st
|
| Talking about "morality of speech" is just noise and
| deserves the quotation marks
| disembiggen wrote:
| Free speech is "about" whatever is in the first amendment
|
| Lol, USAian moment, how about the other 7.7 billion of us?
| dadjoker wrote:
| "What many people failed to understand, and therefore failed to
| defend, is an unpleasant fact of intellectual liberalism: When
| speech causes emotional or mental pain, the offended parties are
| morally entitled to nothing in the form of compensation from or
| punishment for the offender."
|
| A line that many people still can't handle.
| devmor wrote:
| It's entirely subjective. For instance, if you're a Christian,
| the Bible would have you beaten, stoned, amputated or killed
| for different types of speech deemed offensive to specific
| parties.
|
| The US legal system also provides many avenues for punishing
| people based on their speech.
|
| Most legal systems and most religions follow similar rules.
| Zetice wrote:
| It's not that people expect compensation or punishment, it's
| that as private citizens, we're totally and completely free to
| judge the shit out of people for what they say and do.
|
| I don't expect the government to step in when someone says
| something hateful, but I do pay attention to which groups allow
| that kind of behavior in their associations and which don't.
|
| We all _do_ have a right to leave the rooms hateful people are
| in, and the people in charge of those rooms (as long as its not
| the government) are free to control how their space gets used.
| bjt2n3904 wrote:
| I've been told that not only is my speech violence, but so is my
| silence.
| devmor wrote:
| Another thinkpiece positing that facing consequences for saying
| fucked up shit is somehow a bad thing.
|
| How many of these must we suffer through? Why do none of these
| people grasp the concept that when you speak to other people,
| they do not have to passively absorb your words?
|
| This author, like many others, could use the sage advice my
| father gave me in 5th grade when I taunted and made fun of
| another student and got beat up for it: "Don't let your mouth
| write checks your ass can't cash."
| Swenrekcah wrote:
| There are two distinct things people often confuse on either
| side of this issue.
|
| Say a stupid/offending/violent thing and you'll face
| consequences from
|
| 1) other people listening in the form of shunning/shouting/lost
| opportunities/laughing.
|
| 2) the government in form of fines or even imprisonment.
|
| People on both sides get all hot and bothered when they receive
| 1) and complain that they have freedom of speech or that their
| opponents are bigots. This should mostly be ignored, like you
| said: "Don't let your mouth write checks your ass can't cash."
|
| Some people however want their opponents to face 2) and that is
| very dangerous. That is literally fascism and this sentiment
| exists on both sides as well.
|
| It's 2) we need to defend against and pretending that we're
| only talking about 1) is a fatal misunderstanding.
| banannaise wrote:
| As noted (and then, weirdly, disagreed with) in the article, you
| have to make a clear delineation between speech that is
| _offensive_ and speech that is _abusive_. And that is not always
| an easy distinction to make!
|
| Repeatedly using slurs is abusive, but what if the majority of
| people don't see it as a slur? If your answer is "then it's not a
| slur", then what do you think of the frequent use of the N-word
| in the first half of the 20th century?
|
| Is it abusive to repeatedly and baselessly accuse an entire group
| of child abuse ("grooming")?
|
| If you repeatedly attend community gatherings to repeat speech
| that is deliberately offensive to that community, does that rise
| to the level of abuse?
|
| These are reasonable questions that we tend to just skip over
| when we talk about "cancel culture" and those who are
| characterized, fairly or unfairly, as victims of it.
| rini17 wrote:
| Not so long ago, bodily punishments were considered fully
| acceptable, or even beneficial. So the distinction against
| physical violence which this article paints as clear, is in fact
| a recent development. Which may or may not continue further.
| CamperBob2 wrote:
| People who equate speech with violence have generally never known
| physical violence.
|
| I've always held that position firmly. The trouble is, people are
| turning out to be a lot more programmable than I thought they
| (we) were. You could almost say that we're becoming more like
| machines at the same time that machines are becoming more like
| us. To the extent that's true, the part of the old saying that
| goes "... but words will never hurt me" can be seen as less
| valid.
| fallingknife wrote:
| People who equate speech with violence are usually looking for
| a way to respond to speech with violence.
| pessimizer wrote:
| Agreed. It's an announcement that you've determined that some
| speech has to be crushed, but also preemptively framing it as
| self-defense. It's like when you first hear about
| Libertarians having a Non-Aggression Principle at their core,
| but then you start to hear how they redefine "aggression."
|
| In a very similar way, when Group A starts calling Group B
| "terrorist," it's really an announcement that Group A is
| going to be compromising their own professed ethics and
| processes to destroy Group B. It's an announcement of martial
| law, not a label that reliably describes any particular
| behavior by "terrorist" groups.
|
| Speech- and thought-violence rhetoric is just empty
| rationalization and crybully rhetoric from the powerless, but
| it's often a prelude to a brutal crackdown when it comes from
| the powerful.
| PuppyTailWags wrote:
| I don't know if this is true all the time. I think knowingly
| sending rape threats to rape victims is pretty violent
| behavior. I think knowingly trying to trigger someone into an
| eating disorder relapse or coercing someone into suicide are
| heinous things that fall into violence. I think there is a line
| where speech can be violent or said with the intent to harm
| someone the same as a punch is.
| SideburnsOfDoom wrote:
| > I think knowingly sending rape threats to rape victims is
| pretty violent behavior.
|
| This is correct, also because such speech is quite often a
| precursor to actual violence. View it as more than a thing in
| isolation, without consequence.
|
| In a political context, violent rhetoric about a particular
| group of people is predictably followed by actual violence
| towards members of that group. Hate speech is very much _a
| part of_ hate crimes. They 're not separable.
| CamperBob2 wrote:
| _I think knowingly sending rape threats to rape victims is
| pretty violent behavior_
|
| Compared to the actual act of rape? No. That kind of thinking
| just devalues the victim.
|
| That said, specific threats aren't normally examples of
| protected speech. Extreme cases make bad law.
| Ztynovovk wrote:
| [dead]
| anigbrowl wrote:
| _Compared to the actual act of rape? No. That kind of
| thinking just devalues the victim._
|
| Numerous rape victims have objected to subsequent threats
| of additional rape, and would probably not take kindly to
| your inference that they're somehow devaluing themselves.
| You commented above that you think many participants in
| this debate lack experience of physical violence, and to be
| frank I am inclined to wonder the same of you in this
| instance.
| PuppyTailWags wrote:
| I also agree extreme cases make bad law. That's why I'm
| disagreeing with the extreme that there are no exceptions
| to the notion of speech not being violent.
| CamperBob2 wrote:
| I think we have to be careful not to put words in each
| others' mouths here. To be clear, I am not saying that
| specific, credible threats of violence should be treated
| as "speech" in the First Amendment sense.
|
| In my view, the status quo, where most speech is fair
| game until it rises to the level of coercive threats, is
| about right.
| robertlagrant wrote:
| Things can be bad without being violent. I don't
| understand this widespread push to try and erase the
| difference between non-violent bad things and violent bad
| things.
| rmah wrote:
| Reprehensible? Disgusting? Vile? Yes, definitely. Violent?
| No, not at all.
|
| Is hitting someone who is trying to hurt a loved to try to
| get them to stop violent? Yes, 100%. Is it morally justified,
| even good? Again yes (IMO).
|
| I don't understand this need to try to redefine words. While
| language certainly evolves, this sort of redefinition just
| feels different to me somehow.
| giantg2 wrote:
| Those would be intentional (a differentiation the article
| makes) threats. These fall under terroristic threats. They
| are not violent themself, but they are threats of violence
| which are not legal.
| PuppyTailWags wrote:
| The poster I'm responding to disagrees with the
| differentiation of the article. I'm trying to affirm the
| differentiation with examples.
| MarcoZavala wrote:
| [dead]
| neonsunset wrote:
| Agree, nor do they have accurate grasp of reality, living in
| sheltered environments expecting internet rules apply to
| physical world.
|
| Getting punched in the face is a good start.
| anigbrowl wrote:
| I have a _lot_ of experience with physical violence. The
| _Brandenburg_ criteria of specificity and imminence are useful
| legal yardsticks, but they also assume every set of
| circumstances is isolated from everything else and can can
| considered independently, almost in a social vacuum. This is
| partly the outcome of the Angle-American legal tradition and
| the reductive philosophical approach it uses.
|
| It's less clear cut in the real world. To some extent one must
| be willing to tolerate negative incoming messages, or otherwise
| one would never leave one's home ot risk any interaction at
| all. On the other hand, to argue that no speech act can ever
| have a violent component by definition is facile; much speech
| as a prelude the violence, and a lack of specificity in space,
| manner, or time just as easily be designed to stoke fear by
| strategically using uncertainty to render its object paranoid
| and exhaust their defensive capability in advance.
|
| Much of this discourse at present is purely strategic, and
| often wildly disingenuous. Many people who speak in lofty terms
| about free speech (not specifying anyone in particular here)
| are notably silent when it comes to people harrassing
| librarians or allegations that drag shows = groomers +
| pedophilia and therefore are legitimate targets for physical or
| terroristic violence (bomb threats and the like that are
| sufficiently credible to provoke a police response).
| trieste92 wrote:
| > that are sufficiently credible to provoke a police response
|
| They do promote a police response because making a bomb
| threat is illegal in itself. Harassment is illegal in itself
|
| You don't need to redefine a bunch of words and do a bunch of
| mental gymnastics to make something that's already illegal
| illegal
| Zetice wrote:
| I dunno if I agree with you overall, but getting punched in the
| face in the street is wildly different from someone calling you
| a bad name on the Internet, so on that point I entirely agree.
|
| Getting punched in the face is primal, it gets into that part
| of your brain that we're all wisely told to suppress, the
| animalistic nature of us upright apes.
|
| It's... well, nobody has ever said anything to me online that
| has caused me to feel even a fraction of what I've felt getting
| punched in the face.
|
| I don't know how or even if that contributes to the
| conversation, but I think it's worth saying.
| johnny22 wrote:
| how much physical violence is enough? Getting jumped by a crowd
| of dudes for no reason? Getting held up at gunpoint? There was
| definitely some other stuff as well, but those are the most
| memorable. I do admit that i haven't been in an actual warzone
| though.
| CamperBob2 wrote:
| So you're saying that you equate speech (not credible,
| specific threats or other extreme examples of non-protected
| speech) with having your life threatened physically.
|
| I wish I could understand where you're coming from. I
| genuinely do.
|
| ------------- Replying here due to rate limit:
|
| That's why I said "generally." I'm not setting out to
| invalidate or disrespect any individual's experience.
|
| It's likely that we'd have no trouble finding Holocaust
| survivors who would equate Nazi rhetoric with violence, for
| instance. They would agree with your position, given that
| such rhetoric arguably facilitated violence against them that
| would not otherwise have occurred. German law reflects this
| point of view.
|
| But my position has traditionally been that prior restraint
| empowers the bad guys to an even greater extent. You don't
| want Nazis spreading messages of hate and violence... but you
| _really_ don 't want them telling you what _you_ can say, if
| /when they come to power again.
| johnny22 wrote:
| The quote was:
|
| > People who equate speech with violence have generally
| never known physical violence.
|
| Just wondering if that meets the standard or not. Not that
| I think all speech is violence though.
|
| I just think you setup a strawman.
| anigbrowl wrote:
| * * *
| pugets wrote:
| Being liberal in the 90's meant defending controversial or
| disruptive speech on the premises of the mantra, "I may not agree
| with what you say, but I'll defend your right to say it." This
| principle operated as a liberal self-preservation tactic. The
| Church had more influence in society than it does today, and if
| anyone was going to challenge the status quo, it had to be
| liberals. Hip hop music, feminist art, raunchy daytime
| television, and that nasty George Carlin all played a role in
| challenging the modesty that the Church wanted to preserve.
|
| Decades passed. The church lost most of its mainstream power.
| Raytheon began marketing itself as a diverse workplace. Goldman
| Sachs marched in parades with rainbow flags. The question of gay
| marriage was settled. As society liberalized, liberals found
| themselves usurping the role of cultural hall monitor. It became
| disadvantageous for liberals to defend controversial speech, so
| new rationales had to be created to prevent the spread of anti-
| liberal ideas.
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