4 ms·
It is not stifling freedom of speech. Not one iota. Remember, you do not have the right to force someone to listen to you. And remember, most of the stuff we'r
by st3v3r 10y ago
It is not stifling freedom of speech. Not one iota. Remember, you do not have the right to force someone to listen to you.
And remember, most of the stuff we're talking about here are twitter eggs saying they're going to rape someone's family to death because a video game was delayed. No reasonable person would consider that protected speech.
- stvswn 10y agoWho is arguing that listeners be "forced" to hear hate speech? The question at hand is: do we want to be permitted to hear hate speech? Twitter and Facebook (and the law in some jurisdictions) are saying: "no, you may not encounter these subjects where we have the power to stop you, because it may inspire bad things within you -- either personal pain, or worse yet, radicalization." Your second point is that none of this content is any good, anyway -- that we're better off getting rid of it. FB and Twitter can do what they like, and there is something to be said for removing low quality content in order to achieve a better product. But "hate speech" seems much broader than that. In Chaplinsky (a terrible SCOTUS decision that has been abandoned in practice), a WWI-era court decided that an anti-war protester couldn't disseminate anti-war rhetoric to his fellow immigrants (in Yiddish, btw). This was "like shouting fire in a crowded theater." Some things are just too dangerous to say out loud. Are we so certain of our current taboos that we really don't want to hear from the fringe? Are we really OK with giving up our right to hear controversial viewpoints and decide their merits for ourselves? Because that's what these rules/laws do -- they don't force you to hear anything. You are always free to block, ignore, etc. They prevent you from encountering the content in the first place -- someone gets to decide for you what is and isn't "safe," because they're afraid you'll be influenced by it. For me, I don't want to be kept ignorant of something because someone decides I'm better off not hearing. Even if that speech is violent, racist, conspiratorial, or just plain nutty. I can decide when divert my attention. It's part of being an adult -- learning that words can't hurt you.
- 20years 10y agoCouldn't have said it better myself.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- 20years 10y ago"Remember, you do not have the right to force someone to listen to you." Where did I even indicate or hint to that??? Having freedom of speech is not the same thing as forcing someone to listen to you.
- st3v3r 10y agoIf that's the case, then this is not stifling of free speech.