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Freedom of speech is in retreat

373 points by cronjobber 10y ago

jswny 10y ago
In my opinion, free speech only applies to the state as the state is not a product you can decide not to use such as Facebook and Twitter (from which you do not need free speech protection), that is the fundamental difference. People should face no punishment other than the potential scorn of the public for their words. Say whatever you want, but be prepared to take disapproval for it. Edit: I don't know how to explain what I said earlier but apparently I didn't get my point across so I'm going to remove it.
- H0n3sty 10y ago
  So if you say something critical of Islam, and violence occurs as a result, should you be subjected to legal punishment?
  - chopin 10y ago
    The violent people should isn't it?
    - H0n3sty 10y ago
      Yes, because speech is not violent but actions can be. Blaming speech reminds me of a small child pleading that someone made them do it when they learn there are consequences for their actions.
  - dang 10y ago
    You've posted many religious and racial flamewar comments to Hacker News. Please stop. That is not what this site is for.
MicroBerto 10y ago
American free speech as we know it is effectively dead with the replacement of just a couple of Supreme Court Justices. We are that close to it being gone. 2016 is the most important year in the history of this country, I am thoroughly convinced of that.
- tomp 10y ago
  Every year seems the most important. But you can't really judge it without significant historical distance.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- tuna-piano 10y ago
  Yes, not during the 1812 war when the White House was invaded. Not during the 1860s when our country was at war with itself. Not during the 1940s when we were in a depression and a giant war. Every year and every election always seems more historically significant than it is - because you're living it now.
  - MicroBerto 10y ago
    We survived those - changed, but in tact. The very basis of the Constitution could very well not survive this one.
- daodedickinson 10y ago
  Too true. When Hillary wins she will undo Citizens United to make sure no one can make a feature film that criticizes her ever again. Sure, you might be able to make a book, but so few people read it could never matter.
BadassFractal 10y ago
Fascinating and terrifying at the same time. Glad to see the article mention the more civilized cases of free speech suppression such as the Yale one, in addition to the really gruesome and macabre ones across the world. We should prevent a death by a thousand cuts if possible AND obviously do something about the brutality in other parts of the world.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- cm3 10y ago
  From what I've seen in the videos of students complaining about missing safe spaces, I wouldn't call it civilized. For Ivy League students, I found the discourse rather uneducated, one-sided, and free of tangible arguments. That said, what wouldn't bother me seems to be a huge discomfort for the complaining students, and they surely had a different upbringing than me for them to feel that way. I mean, I grew up in Western Europe and am likely unaware of some of the finer details in their cultural background.
  - rm_-rf_slash 10y ago
    They're also kids. Kids make mistakes. Kids get drunk and think posting selfies is the best thing to do at that moment. Kids grow up. They change. They look back and cringe. They think more for themselves than their standing in social circles.
    - rimantas 10y ago
      They are adults.
      - cm3 10y ago
        Or maybe kids who want to be treated as adults but not act like it? It's part of a phase in most kids.
      - rm_-rf_slash 10y ago
zaroth 10y ago
Why is Economist pushing the narrative that Innocence of Muslims had anything to do with the embassy attack and murder of the US Ambassador in Libya when that cover story was completely debunked?
- daveguy 10y ago
  Seems like the facts listed in the first paragraph are substantial indications for it having at least something to do with the attack. It wouldn't be the first time or the last time extremist muslims reacted violently. Do you have a source for that complete debunking? Edit: The article as a whole isn't about just that incident either. It is about the growing suppression of speech from regimes of all kinds.
  - ones_and_zeros 10y ago
    It is the corner stone of the Benghazi investigations. HRC wrote in an email that they "knew" the attack was planned and had nothing to do with the video yet kept repeating that it was because of the video to the public. Her defense was pretty pathetic. [0] [0] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2015/10/22/transcript-clinton-testifies-before-house-committee-on-benghazi/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2015/10...
- lifty 10y ago
  excuse my ignorance, but could you elaborate a bit on that.
  - vanattab 10y ago
    http://www.factcheck.org/2012/10/benghazi-timeline/ http://www.factcheck.org/2012/10/benghazi-timeline/ I am not sure I buy the whole cover up story totally. But I do think it was handled poorly by the Administration because they thought it would be convenient to portray the events through a particular political lens. Even if the attacks were motivated in some small way by the video have we really gotten to the point of blaming the filmmakers for murders committed by people offend by the flim? I don't care how "in poor taste" the film is.
sergiotapia 10y ago
I wonder how many people died when Kevin Smith's Dogma came out.
- xexers 10y ago
  NSFW: http://www.theonion.com/article/no-one-murdered-because-of-this-image-29553 http://www.theonion.com/article/no-one-murdered-because-of-t...
sevenless 10y ago
Some other legal restrictions on communication that aren't normally included in the "free speech" debate: * Distributing pirated media/breaking copyright or trademarks * Slander and libel laws * HIPAA and medical information privacy laws * Sharing information for insider trading * Market manipulation by sharing false or misleading information * Breaching attorney-client privilege * Laws governing how jurors are allowed to communicate * FCC and obscenity laws in US media * Distribution of illegal porn (for various definitions of illegal) * Holocaust denial laws in Canada and Europe * US anti-boycott provisions that ban "furnishing information" about doing business with certain countries * Military and government classified information (thanks rmc!) There are many others. The point is we're always a bit selective about what counts as free speech, and there are lots of exceptions, some very well motivated. These articles about "free speech is in danger" seem to be unnecessarily abstract: if you want to discuss the problems with Islam or the merits of social justice or whatever, don't argue about the way you're having the debate, just have the debate. Because our society doesn't really view free speech as a consistent principle anyway.
- good_sir_ant 10y ago
  Very good point, and many don't realize the restrictions we already face, even in the United States.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- simonh 10y ago
  Most of those involve people entering into contracts or making agreements not to share information (pirating, medical information, insider trading, market manipulation, attorney-client privilege, jurors, probably anti-boycott?). Slander/Libel, obscenity and holocaust denial are the only ones on that list that I think are truly problematic. I don't think holocaust denial should be a crime. Yes it's despicable, but I'd rather put it in the same category and hollow earthers and UFO spotters. We can't legislate people out of their own stupidity. It's not going to stop people holding such views or circulating them among themselves anyway, so it's utterly pointless. For me Porn is easy too. If it only involves consenting adults, it's fine. If it doesn't then other crimes have been committed and distributing it is de facto complicity by association in those crimes. That only leaves slander and libel. These are civil, not criminal matters and should be prosecuted as private matters based on the harm done to the individuals so slandered or libeled I'd add incitement to commit crimes as an issue. But that falls under complicity or conspiracy to commit a crime. If the speech in question doesn't cross that line, then it should be free. Anything left?
basicplus2 10y ago
ALL religions are cults
- dang 10y ago
  Please don't post religious flamewar comments to HN.
  - basicplus2 10y ago
    sorry if it offends, but this is the cause of these issues shown in the post. perhaps I should explain that i believe cults (religions being cults accepted by a large enough group of people) are the primary mechanism that is used by people in authority to divide and conquer, and control by fear. Further more if people really want to solve these issues , a major effort should be put towards showing people what all cults really are and rid the world of them.
    - dang 10y ago
      It's not that it "offends", it's that religious flamewars are a proven way to destroy the quality of discourse we strive for here. We ban accounts that won't stop doing it, so please stop doing it.
good_sir_ant 10y ago
It's really hard to say how our world will look in the coming decades... On one hand, we have all this explosively liberating technology, cheap and powerful, that is changing the way we communicate and share information. On the other hand, you see the 'natural' result of all this power moving towards the individual: states and governments gripping tighter than ever to control it and maintain their elevated status. It serves to illustrate how asinine our arguments over 'appropriate' speech are. The result of any kind of forced censorship is the same no matter what the content of the speech is : less freedom.
- erikb 10y ago
  Is it really so hard? The technology we have mostly helps people to free themselves from non-US, non-western-European "oppressing" governments (so basically all their enemies get trouble with their population, and the population becomes more open to our culture and more dependent on our technology). But inside our borders we become more and more dependent on the technology, have less and less insight into what is happening in this technology. Also increasing the power of forementioned US and western European governments. The only thing maybe becoming a problem is the eastern hemisphere with China, Russia, S.Korea, Japan and Taiwan (if they decide to work together, but happy for us they are pretty much split in the middle).
jbronn 10y ago
There's a glaring omission in the Economist's articles on free speech: the effort to criminalize BDS activism. [1] [1] https://theintercept.com/2016/02/16/greatest-threat-to-free-speech-in-the-west-criminalizing-activism-against-israeli-occupation/ https://theintercept.com/2016/02/16/greatest-threat-to-free-...
- Cyph0n 10y ago
  They don't want to be labelled as an anti-Semitic publication now, do they? /s
- typon 10y ago
  The Economist has a certain agenda to uphold so this omission is not very surprising
- wallace_f 10y ago
  The magnitude of the efforts to criminalize BDS activism is far too big for this exclusion to to be considered as something forgotten, unintentionally unmentioned.
- kelukelugames 10y ago
  The most vocal BDS and anti-BDS people are both Jewish. At this point, I'm afraid to even ask what is going on.
  - some-guy 10y ago
    My fiancé is Jewish and pro-BDS. Maybe I live in the leftist-Jewish bubble, but there is quite a bit of political divide in the Jewish community right now over Israel. Criticism of Israel for a long time in the Jewish community, and still to this day, is considered blasphemy. Questioning the idea of a Jewish state vs. a secular one is even worse. I'm agnostic but grew up Christian, but it's fascinating to me to see it all unfold...I have American friends who have joined the IDF growing up who were super pro-Israel so it's interesting to see this rift appearing.
    - 10y ago
return0 10y ago
I don't know, islamic terror in particular seems to stand out from the rest. I mean, china, or the mexican drug lords are directly defending their interests. Islamic terror is not, it's revenge against a nebulous 'enemy' that they are being forced to tolerate (terrorists are not defending the honor of the peaceful muslims (who wouldnt even read charlie hebdo); instead they are trying to radicalize them). > he could not live “in any country where free speech is allowed” There is something to be said about incompatibility of certain cultures here.
- rm_-rf_slash 10y ago
  Is it not defending interest? Most Islamic terrorism in our age can be traced to the hyper-conservative madrasahs all over the world sponsored by (Sunni) Saudi Arabia, which seeks to dominate Islamic discourse and blunt the influence of (Shia) Iran. Also worth noting that the vast majority of global Islamic terrorists (as in not secretarian violence like was seen in Iraq, but rather acts of terrorism in predominantly non-Muslim areas) are Sunni. Yes, there may be compatibility, but there is also a great degree of deliberate cultural programming that we often do not notice or even consider.
  - jessaustin 10y ago
    As usual, religion is a smokescreen. The most salient motivation for Saudi and other quasi-state support of "radical" Islam is to focus the populace's dissatisfaction outward toward the West instead of inward toward the horrific authoritarian regimes that rule these areas.
    - rm_-rf_slash 10y ago
      Bingo. Any time powerful people advocate for anything on moralistic grounds (like "make the world safe for democracy"), my immediate reaction is to ask "if these people get their way, what else do they get out of it?"
    - acqq 10y ago
      > As usual, religion is a smokescreen. Why do you deny sincere religiosity and direct reading of the texts as the motivation for the acts of religious people? Through the ages the humanity has done a lot of harm to "others" based on much less than what's in the holy texts of "the religion that can't be named." But that particular religion has spread especially based on the idea of fighting the war for religion and benefit of the fighters (both in this world and as the shortcut to heaven), all in the "holy" texts. For Christianity's witch hunting, only one verse in Bible was enough (Exodus 22:18). Luckily, there was at least: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Render_unto_Caesar https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Render_unto_Caesar Edit: return0, your "only very few lines have being pursued" signals to me that you don't know the content of the "holy" texts being discussed (that is, of the religion that can't be named). The visual presentation of the extent of hate directed to unbelievers is stunning -- almost every chapter remains heavily marked once we attempt doing this. And the ideas and demands are often, almost hypnotically, repeated. It's easy to prove it, there are enough translations even on-line.
ck2 10y ago
Several people are currently in jail without trial for making non-specific verbal or written threats against schools in the USA. One could play devil's-advocate and argue that is free-speech since the threat is non-specific and no actual action was taken. Using that same logic however, insulting a religion specifically to demonstrate/cause violent reaction should trigger a per-emptive jail term without trial in the USA? But now you've got me defending an abrahamic religion, I feel like I need to take a shower to get clean.
- mistermann 10y ago
  If you could kill a religion as you can schoolchildren I might agree they are comparable.
  - ck2 10y ago
    Well again, not to defend the religion, but they tend to go after people, not just the religion, and yes those people get killed. Like the idiots who go and kill people in headgear who turn out to be Sikh and not even muslim. Started happening after 9/11 and still happens every few years when the flames are fanned.
- theandrewbailey 10y ago
  > Using that same logic however, insulting a religion specifically to demonstrate/cause violent reaction should trigger a per-emptive jail term without trial in the USA? Constitution says no, but if they call you a terrorist, the government could put your ass in Gitmo and you'd never be heard from again.
  - ck2 10y ago
    I think we need a better reference these days because no-one has been added to gitmo in eight years and certainly not any US citizen (that we know of, who knows for sure?) However I don't think there are even examples of terrorists without trials in supermax? Again that we know of, because we tend to not find out these things until someone gives up their own freedom to leak out what is really going on years later. I do know there are people in jail, not prison, without trial for threatening schools. That's as close as we get to prison-for-speech?
droopyEyelids 10y ago
US attacks on whistleblowers are not mentioned. US religious ’fatwahs’ against abortion doctors aren’t mentioned, but much is made of Muslim misbehavior. Kind of a bad article. It also doesn’t mention anything about UK slander laws.
- rmc 10y ago
  Quite often this "free speech" argument is just a way to promote hatred and intolerance of Muslims.
  - raverbashing 10y ago
    Lovely joke, I found it hilarious
    - H0n3sty 10y ago
      Free speech is hateful and intolerant to a peace loving people. And we all know Islam is a race, not a religion, so it deserves the same protections from discrimination. When will these lovely jokes get old?
      - rmc 10y ago
        > And we all know Islam is a race, not a religion, so it deserves the same protections from discrimination. In Europe, "racism", in law, means discrimination to someone on the grounds of their race, ethnicity, national origin or religious background. It's been that way since the 1960s.
        DanBC 10y ago
        That wasn't the case in the UK, where Jewish people got protection under race discrimination law, Christians got protections under blasphemy laws[1], but Muslims weren't protected by either. It was fine to say things about Muslims and Islam that you could not say about Jews or Christians. This loophole was used by far-right groups - the BNP, EDL, etc to avoid prosecution. [1] And before you say the blasphemy laws were never used the film "Life of Brian" only got permissions for Glasgow cinemas in 2009, and Stewart Lee went through a very expensive blasphemy court case for "Jerry Springer the Opera".
deleted 10y ago
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yk 10y ago
Disturbing thought, I wonder if free speech is only politically feasible under the assumption of limited distribution. If we look at free speech two decades ago, the two ways of enjoying free speech were, you could convince an editor, or you could copy a few hundred leaflets and distribute them by hand. The first case limits the distribution to people who buy the newspaper (or who buy from that publisher, there's a reason that explicitly Anarchist bookshops are a thing) and the second limits both the numbers and the geographic distribution. Today anybody can, at least in principle, overcome these limitations just by getting a youtube account, with the effect that for all X, group X is constantly confronted with vile hatred. The effect is, everybody is pissed off, while only groups which are explicitly pro freedom of speech tell themselves that they have to live with the trolls. The idea is, that as long as freedom of speech was limited by the practicalities of distribution to a, for most people, tolerable level, everybody was happy to endorse free speech. Nowadays it is no longer constrained by distribution and people start to revisit their assumptions about free speech.
- rm_-rf_slash 10y ago
  The Internet may have a wide reach but there is also an awful signal-to-noise ratio. You can say whatever you want and share it with your friends but that doesn't mean they will share it or even read it. So given that, I don't think the semi-frictionless free expression is all that different from Thomas Paine's "Common Sense" leaflets of the late 18th century.
- zanny 10y ago
  It is only sad that people refuse to revisit their assumptions about whatever X is where contradictory voices about X would drive them to think the solution is to cause violence.
  - NathanKP 10y ago
    Absolutely. If you are truly confident in your position, and know it is correct then a dissenting voice shouldn't bother you. Instead you should just feel sorry for them. It's the people who can't handle that a dissenting voice is causing cognitive dissonance that feel like violence is the solution.
rmc 10y ago
It's interesting that many who advocate a "free speech über alles" approach have a curious exemption for property rights. They claim the right of Facebook/Twitter/reddit/etc. as privacy companies to control their property (i.e. their websites) apparently trump right to free speech. An earlier free speech article also from the Economist, which is linked from the sidebar[1], claims that private companies should be exempted from free speech rules, and should be allowed to publish, or not publish, anything they want. Should Facebook's property rights overrule my free speech rights? [1] http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21699909-curbs-free-speech-are-growing-tighter-it-time-speak-out-under-attack http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21699909-curbs-free-sp...
- theandrewbailey 10y ago
  Have you read EULAs these days? Everyone has technically "agreed" that these companies can take down anything they want to on their platform or suspend/delete an account just because they can.
- csense 10y ago
  If you don't like Facebook's censorship policies, don't use Facebook. I suppose an argument could be made that due to its size, Facebook is sort of like a "utility" and has a duty to provide "service" to everybody regardless of its opinions about their use of the service. But unlike the electric company, which is the only place you can buy electricity, Facebook is not a monopoly: There are plenty of other websites where you can publish your speech (or you can even get your own domain and VPS and host your own site very cheaply).
  - rmc 10y ago
    > If you don't like Facebook's censorship policies, don't use Facebook. Why? Don't I have a right to free speech (on Facebook)? Should it be moral for the government to set up small, limited, "free speech zones" far away from everywhere and say "If you want free speech, go here?". (Yes I know that has sorta happened in USA) What about requiring that all bookshops/newspaper sellers in a certain area only sell books/newspapers that don't mention $TOPIC. You're quite free to go to a bookshop 100km away which will sell you anything. Is that not a restriction on free speech?
erikb 10y ago
How did such an anti-freespeech, "islam=murder" promoting article made it to the front page? And is the economist always so traditional, right wingy? I have to say I'm a little shocked of what I'm reading here.
- JoeAltmaier 10y ago
  Trouble with the Economist, they don't credit anything they write there. No idea who is speaking; not even the Editors get credit. I dismiss them outright, and refuse to read a word.
  - orthoganol 10y ago
    Seems obvious that they want to avoid personal repercussions. They very frankly embarrass other countries (deservedly), and they don't want to lose their ability to get a visa or even endanger their own safety.
- marcoperaza 10y ago
  What? How is this article anti free speech?
  - erikb 10y ago
    Now we both got downvoted from all the strong opinions here. I think your question is valid. If you read the text about the president needing to speak to a priest it is considered very bad that a person with a lot of military power needs to get so low and talk to a normal person without any military power directly. My interpretation of that kind of comment is that it feels anti free speech, pro surveilance, pro censorship.
Tepix 10y ago
Relevant link: Andrew Cuomo and Other Democrats Launch Severe Attack on Free Speech to Protect Israel https://theintercept.com/2016/06/06/andrew-cuomo-and-other-democrats-launch-severe-attack-on-free-speech-to-protect-israel/ https://theintercept.com/2016/06/06/andrew-cuomo-and-other-d...
- Cyph0n 10y ago
  Yep, the response to the BDS movement is the definition of double-standards. It's also proof that Israel loves to pull the anti-Semite card whenever it feels like it.
kingkawn 10y ago
It is comforting to believe in increasing speech suppression when I can't think of meaningful things to say.
andrewclunn 10y ago
Are we AGAIN promoting that BS lie that this film was responsible for the attacks on the embassy in Libya? That's a lie that just won't die.
deleted 10y ago
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qxmat 10y ago
My partner has spent 30 minutes sitting in your lobby. If someone from the Economist is reading this, please ensure it doesn't happen to the next candidate as it's extremely unprofessional and a huge red flag.
maxerickson 10y ago
Measuring progress is hard. 100 years ago, a person in the wrong place in the United States who happened to say something someone else didn't like might end up getting murdered by a mob. I guess that is getting to be a long time ago, but history should not be viewed with a tight lens.
H0n3sty 10y ago
The behavior pattern described is basically the collision of honour culture (belief in retribution) and victimhood culture (easily taking offense). https://www.researchgate.net/publication/272408166_Microaggression_and_Moral_Cultures https://www.researchgate.net/publication/272408166_Microaggr...
retube 10y ago
The problem with the free speech debate is everyone has a different definition or understanding of what free speech is. Free speech should be considered the right to publically criticise and call to account governments, police, judiciary and other state institutions. It should not mean the right to say absolutely anything to anybody. Having laws on racism and hate speech (for example) provide well-meaning guidance on acceptable behaviour within civilised society and help reduce discrimination, bias etc. But like all rights "free speech" confers privilege and responsibility on the holder: just because you have a right to doesn't mean you should (e.g the video referenced at the beginning of the article).
- talmand 10y ago
  The problem as I see it; define "hate speech".
  - retube 10y ago
    Sure but the definition of anything is subject to interpretation/context/intent etc. If you dealt only in absolutes it would be impossible to have any laws at all. Even defining something like "murder" has plenty of room for grey areas. But still I hope we agree that having a "no murder" law is probably desirable in society.
    - talmand 10y ago
      Ok, no definition then. That's fine. The point I'm making is that once you've opened the door to banning speech on completely subjective topics that a subset of the group gets to decide, then things will go bad. But murder is a hugely different subject than something so abstract as "hate speech". I can define murder, I ask one to define hate speech. There is definite evidence of harm when it comes to murder, a person has been deprived of life by another. I fail to see how "hate speech" itself deprives anyone of anything nor causes real harm. Of course, incitement to violence due to speech is a potential problem, but that's already covered by existing laws.
      - 10y ago
Jerry2 10y ago
Canada has blasphemy laws [1]? I knew they had "hate speech" laws which basically meant that they could prosecute you for saying anything that some might find offensive but I had no idea about blasphemy. Scary. [1] http://cdn.static-economist.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/original-size/images/print-edition/20160604_IRM900.png http://cdn.static-economist.com/sites/default/files/imagecac...
known 10y ago
"If you don't read a newspaper you are uninformed. If you do read a newspaper, you are misinformed." --Mark Twain
l3m0ndr0p 10y ago
What we will see more and more in America is the privatization of all "public" utilities and services (schools->charter, Libraries-->?). This will enable and allow these non-public corporations to enact and enforce censorship. Since the "free" speech applies mostly to our Government interactions, it won't apply to "private" corporate institutions. They will be outside of the constitution of the US. America must wake up to what is happening. It's not too late. We Americans must always be able to speak our minds no matter how offensive, true or false. But we must also never harm ourselves or each other. This should also apply to Government and Corporations. We must always hold those in "power" accountable for their actions public or private. Peace
usrusr 10y ago
This "right not to be offended" a part of the article is talking about is such a Trojan horse. Groups are not claiming a right not to be offended, they are claiming the right to feel "mortally" offended, giving them leverage to pursue goals often not that much related to the original act of offending speech. Since it is the offended who get to define what offends them, the term "right, not to be offended" falls quite short of the actual problem. Everybody already is perfectly free to not feel offended by anything. This right is a given, everywhere. So the only thing remaining to claim is the right to declare stuff as offending at will and force those decisions on others.

373 points by cronjobber 10y ago

jswny 10y ago

In my opinion, free speech only applies to the state as the state is not a product you can decide not to use such as Facebook and Twitter (from which you do not need free speech protection), that is the fundamental difference. People should face no punishment other than the potential scorn of the public for their words. Say whatever you want, but be prepared to take disapproval for it. Edit: I don't know how to explain what I said earlier but apparently I didn't get my point across so I'm going to remove it.

H0n3sty 10y ago
So if you say something critical of Islam, and violence occurs as a result, should you be subjected to legal punishment?
- chopin 10y ago
  The violent people should isn't it?
  - H0n3sty 10y ago
    Yes, because speech is not violent but actions can be. Blaming speech reminds me of a small child pleading that someone made them do it when they learn there are consequences for their actions.
- dang 10y ago
  You've posted many religious and racial flamewar comments to Hacker News. Please stop. That is not what this site is for.

MicroBerto 10y ago

American free speech as we know it is effectively dead with the replacement of just a couple of Supreme Court Justices. We are that close to it being gone. 2016 is the most important year in the history of this country, I am thoroughly convinced of that.

tomp 10y ago
Every year seems the most important. But you can't really judge it without significant historical distance.
deleted 10y ago
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tuna-piano 10y ago
Yes, not during the 1812 war when the White House was invaded. Not during the 1860s when our country was at war with itself. Not during the 1940s when we were in a depression and a giant war. Every year and every election always seems more historically significant than it is - because you're living it now.
- MicroBerto 10y ago
  We survived those - changed, but in tact. The very basis of the Constitution could very well not survive this one.
daodedickinson 10y ago
Too true. When Hillary wins she will undo Citizens United to make sure no one can make a feature film that criticizes her ever again. Sure, you might be able to make a book, but so few people read it could never matter.

BadassFractal 10y ago

Fascinating and terrifying at the same time. Glad to see the article mention the more civilized cases of free speech suppression such as the Yale one, in addition to the really gruesome and macabre ones across the world. We should prevent a death by a thousand cuts if possible AND obviously do something about the brutality in other parts of the world.

deleted 10y ago
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cm3 10y ago
From what I've seen in the videos of students complaining about missing safe spaces, I wouldn't call it civilized. For Ivy League students, I found the discourse rather uneducated, one-sided, and free of tangible arguments. That said, what wouldn't bother me seems to be a huge discomfort for the complaining students, and they surely had a different upbringing than me for them to feel that way. I mean, I grew up in Western Europe and am likely unaware of some of the finer details in their cultural background.
- rm_-rf_slash 10y ago
  They're also kids. Kids make mistakes. Kids get drunk and think posting selfies is the best thing to do at that moment. Kids grow up. They change. They look back and cringe. They think more for themselves than their standing in social circles.
  - rimantas 10y ago
    They are adults.
    - cm3 10y ago
      Or maybe kids who want to be treated as adults but not act like it? It's part of a phase in most kids.
    - rm_-rf_slash 10y ago

zaroth 10y ago

Why is Economist pushing the narrative that Innocence of Muslims had anything to do with the embassy attack and murder of the US Ambassador in Libya when that cover story was completely debunked?

daveguy 10y ago
Seems like the facts listed in the first paragraph are substantial indications for it having at least something to do with the attack. It wouldn't be the first time or the last time extremist muslims reacted violently. Do you have a source for that complete debunking? Edit: The article as a whole isn't about just that incident either. It is about the growing suppression of speech from regimes of all kinds.
- ones_and_zeros 10y ago
  It is the corner stone of the Benghazi investigations. HRC wrote in an email that they "knew" the attack was planned and had nothing to do with the video yet kept repeating that it was because of the video to the public. Her defense was pretty pathetic. [0] [0] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2015/10/22/transcript-clinton-testifies-before-house-committee-on-benghazi/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2015/10...
lifty 10y ago
excuse my ignorance, but could you elaborate a bit on that.
- vanattab 10y ago
  http://www.factcheck.org/2012/10/benghazi-timeline/ http://www.factcheck.org/2012/10/benghazi-timeline/ I am not sure I buy the whole cover up story totally. But I do think it was handled poorly by the Administration because they thought it would be convenient to portray the events through a particular political lens. Even if the attacks were motivated in some small way by the video have we really gotten to the point of blaming the filmmakers for murders committed by people offend by the flim? I don't care how "in poor taste" the film is.

sergiotapia 10y ago

I wonder how many people died when Kevin Smith's Dogma came out.

xexers 10y ago
NSFW: http://www.theonion.com/article/no-one-murdered-because-of-this-image-29553 http://www.theonion.com/article/no-one-murdered-because-of-t...

sevenless 10y ago

Some other legal restrictions on communication that aren't normally included in the "free speech" debate: * Distributing pirated media/breaking copyright or trademarks * Slander and libel laws * HIPAA and medical information privacy laws * Sharing information for insider trading * Market manipulation by sharing false or misleading information * Breaching attorney-client privilege * Laws governing how jurors are allowed to communicate * FCC and obscenity laws in US media * Distribution of illegal porn (for various definitions of illegal) * Holocaust denial laws in Canada and Europe * US anti-boycott provisions that ban "furnishing information" about doing business with certain countries * Military and government classified information (thanks rmc!) There are many others. The point is we're always a bit selective about what counts as free speech, and there are lots of exceptions, some very well motivated. These articles about "free speech is in danger" seem to be unnecessarily abstract: if you want to discuss the problems with Islam or the merits of social justice or whatever, don't argue about the way you're having the debate, just have the debate. Because our society doesn't really view free speech as a consistent principle anyway.

good_sir_ant 10y ago
Very good point, and many don't realize the restrictions we already face, even in the United States.
deleted 10y ago
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simonh 10y ago
Most of those involve people entering into contracts or making agreements not to share information (pirating, medical information, insider trading, market manipulation, attorney-client privilege, jurors, probably anti-boycott?). Slander/Libel, obscenity and holocaust denial are the only ones on that list that I think are truly problematic. I don't think holocaust denial should be a crime. Yes it's despicable, but I'd rather put it in the same category and hollow earthers and UFO spotters. We can't legislate people out of their own stupidity. It's not going to stop people holding such views or circulating them among themselves anyway, so it's utterly pointless. For me Porn is easy too. If it only involves consenting adults, it's fine. If it doesn't then other crimes have been committed and distributing it is de facto complicity by association in those crimes. That only leaves slander and libel. These are civil, not criminal matters and should be prosecuted as private matters based on the harm done to the individuals so slandered or libeled I'd add incitement to commit crimes as an issue. But that falls under complicity or conspiracy to commit a crime. If the speech in question doesn't cross that line, then it should be free. Anything left?

basicplus2 10y ago

ALL religions are cults

dang 10y ago
Please don't post religious flamewar comments to HN.
- basicplus2 10y ago
  sorry if it offends, but this is the cause of these issues shown in the post. perhaps I should explain that i believe cults (religions being cults accepted by a large enough group of people) are the primary mechanism that is used by people in authority to divide and conquer, and control by fear. Further more if people really want to solve these issues , a major effort should be put towards showing people what all cults really are and rid the world of them.
  - dang 10y ago
    It's not that it "offends", it's that religious flamewars are a proven way to destroy the quality of discourse we strive for here. We ban accounts that won't stop doing it, so please stop doing it.

good_sir_ant 10y ago

It's really hard to say how our world will look in the coming decades... On one hand, we have all this explosively liberating technology, cheap and powerful, that is changing the way we communicate and share information. On the other hand, you see the 'natural' result of all this power moving towards the individual: states and governments gripping tighter than ever to control it and maintain their elevated status. It serves to illustrate how asinine our arguments over 'appropriate' speech are. The result of any kind of forced censorship is the same no matter what the content of the speech is : less freedom.

erikb 10y ago
Is it really so hard? The technology we have mostly helps people to free themselves from non-US, non-western-European "oppressing" governments (so basically all their enemies get trouble with their population, and the population becomes more open to our culture and more dependent on our technology). But inside our borders we become more and more dependent on the technology, have less and less insight into what is happening in this technology. Also increasing the power of forementioned US and western European governments. The only thing maybe becoming a problem is the eastern hemisphere with China, Russia, S.Korea, Japan and Taiwan (if they decide to work together, but happy for us they are pretty much split in the middle).

jbronn 10y ago

There's a glaring omission in the Economist's articles on free speech: the effort to criminalize BDS activism. [1] [1] https://theintercept.com/2016/02/16/greatest-threat-to-free-speech-in-the-west-criminalizing-activism-against-israeli-occupation/ https://theintercept.com/2016/02/16/greatest-threat-to-free-...

Cyph0n 10y ago
They don't want to be labelled as an anti-Semitic publication now, do they? /s
typon 10y ago
The Economist has a certain agenda to uphold so this omission is not very surprising
wallace_f 10y ago
The magnitude of the efforts to criminalize BDS activism is far too big for this exclusion to to be considered as something forgotten, unintentionally unmentioned.
kelukelugames 10y ago
The most vocal BDS and anti-BDS people are both Jewish. At this point, I'm afraid to even ask what is going on.
- some-guy 10y ago
  My fiancé is Jewish and pro-BDS. Maybe I live in the leftist-Jewish bubble, but there is quite a bit of political divide in the Jewish community right now over Israel. Criticism of Israel for a long time in the Jewish community, and still to this day, is considered blasphemy. Questioning the idea of a Jewish state vs. a secular one is even worse. I'm agnostic but grew up Christian, but it's fascinating to me to see it all unfold...I have American friends who have joined the IDF growing up who were super pro-Israel so it's interesting to see this rift appearing.
  - 10y ago

return0 10y ago

I don't know, islamic terror in particular seems to stand out from the rest. I mean, china, or the mexican drug lords are directly defending their interests. Islamic terror is not, it's revenge against a nebulous 'enemy' that they are being forced to tolerate (terrorists are not defending the honor of the peaceful muslims (who wouldnt even read charlie hebdo); instead they are trying to radicalize them). > he could not live “in any country where free speech is allowed” There is something to be said about incompatibility of certain cultures here.

rm_-rf_slash 10y ago
Is it not defending interest? Most Islamic terrorism in our age can be traced to the hyper-conservative madrasahs all over the world sponsored by (Sunni) Saudi Arabia, which seeks to dominate Islamic discourse and blunt the influence of (Shia) Iran. Also worth noting that the vast majority of global Islamic terrorists (as in not secretarian violence like was seen in Iraq, but rather acts of terrorism in predominantly non-Muslim areas) are Sunni. Yes, there may be compatibility, but there is also a great degree of deliberate cultural programming that we often do not notice or even consider.
- jessaustin 10y ago
  As usual, religion is a smokescreen. The most salient motivation for Saudi and other quasi-state support of "radical" Islam is to focus the populace's dissatisfaction outward toward the West instead of inward toward the horrific authoritarian regimes that rule these areas.
  - rm_-rf_slash 10y ago
    Bingo. Any time powerful people advocate for anything on moralistic grounds (like "make the world safe for democracy"), my immediate reaction is to ask "if these people get their way, what else do they get out of it?"
  - acqq 10y ago
    > As usual, religion is a smokescreen. Why do you deny sincere religiosity and direct reading of the texts as the motivation for the acts of religious people? Through the ages the humanity has done a lot of harm to "others" based on much less than what's in the holy texts of "the religion that can't be named." But that particular religion has spread especially based on the idea of fighting the war for religion and benefit of the fighters (both in this world and as the shortcut to heaven), all in the "holy" texts. For Christianity's witch hunting, only one verse in Bible was enough (Exodus 22:18). Luckily, there was at least: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Render_unto_Caesar https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Render_unto_Caesar Edit: return0, your "only very few lines have being pursued" signals to me that you don't know the content of the "holy" texts being discussed (that is, of the religion that can't be named). The visual presentation of the extent of hate directed to unbelievers is stunning -- almost every chapter remains heavily marked once we attempt doing this. And the ideas and demands are often, almost hypnotically, repeated. It's easy to prove it, there are enough translations even on-line.

ck2 10y ago

Several people are currently in jail without trial for making non-specific verbal or written threats against schools in the USA. One could play devil's-advocate and argue that is free-speech since the threat is non-specific and no actual action was taken. Using that same logic however, insulting a religion specifically to demonstrate/cause violent reaction should trigger a per-emptive jail term without trial in the USA? But now you've got me defending an abrahamic religion, I feel like I need to take a shower to get clean.

mistermann 10y ago
If you could kill a religion as you can schoolchildren I might agree they are comparable.
- ck2 10y ago
  Well again, not to defend the religion, but they tend to go after people, not just the religion, and yes those people get killed. Like the idiots who go and kill people in headgear who turn out to be Sikh and not even muslim. Started happening after 9/11 and still happens every few years when the flames are fanned.
theandrewbailey 10y ago
> Using that same logic however, insulting a religion specifically to demonstrate/cause violent reaction should trigger a per-emptive jail term without trial in the USA? Constitution says no, but if they call you a terrorist, the government could put your ass in Gitmo and you'd never be heard from again.
- ck2 10y ago
  I think we need a better reference these days because no-one has been added to gitmo in eight years and certainly not any US citizen (that we know of, who knows for sure?) However I don't think there are even examples of terrorists without trials in supermax? Again that we know of, because we tend to not find out these things until someone gives up their own freedom to leak out what is really going on years later. I do know there are people in jail, not prison, without trial for threatening schools. That's as close as we get to prison-for-speech?

droopyEyelids 10y ago

US attacks on whistleblowers are not mentioned. US religious ’fatwahs’ against abortion doctors aren’t mentioned, but much is made of Muslim misbehavior. Kind of a bad article. It also doesn’t mention anything about UK slander laws.

rmc 10y ago
Quite often this "free speech" argument is just a way to promote hatred and intolerance of Muslims.
- raverbashing 10y ago
  Lovely joke, I found it hilarious
  - H0n3sty 10y ago
    Free speech is hateful and intolerant to a peace loving people. And we all know Islam is a race, not a religion, so it deserves the same protections from discrimination. When will these lovely jokes get old?
    - rmc 10y ago
      > And we all know Islam is a race, not a religion, so it deserves the same protections from discrimination. In Europe, "racism", in law, means discrimination to someone on the grounds of their race, ethnicity, national origin or religious background. It's been that way since the 1960s.
      - DanBC 10y ago
        That wasn't the case in the UK, where Jewish people got protection under race discrimination law, Christians got protections under blasphemy laws[1], but Muslims weren't protected by either. It was fine to say things about Muslims and Islam that you could not say about Jews or Christians. This loophole was used by far-right groups - the BNP, EDL, etc to avoid prosecution. [1] And before you say the blasphemy laws were never used the film "Life of Brian" only got permissions for Glasgow cinemas in 2009, and Stewart Lee went through a very expensive blasphemy court case for "Jerry Springer the Opera".

deleted 10y ago

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yk 10y ago

Disturbing thought, I wonder if free speech is only politically feasible under the assumption of limited distribution. If we look at free speech two decades ago, the two ways of enjoying free speech were, you could convince an editor, or you could copy a few hundred leaflets and distribute them by hand. The first case limits the distribution to people who buy the newspaper (or who buy from that publisher, there's a reason that explicitly Anarchist bookshops are a thing) and the second limits both the numbers and the geographic distribution. Today anybody can, at least in principle, overcome these limitations just by getting a youtube account, with the effect that for all X, group X is constantly confronted with vile hatred. The effect is, everybody is pissed off, while only groups which are explicitly pro freedom of speech tell themselves that they have to live with the trolls. The idea is, that as long as freedom of speech was limited by the practicalities of distribution to a, for most people, tolerable level, everybody was happy to endorse free speech. Nowadays it is no longer constrained by distribution and people start to revisit their assumptions about free speech.

rm_-rf_slash 10y ago
The Internet may have a wide reach but there is also an awful signal-to-noise ratio. You can say whatever you want and share it with your friends but that doesn't mean they will share it or even read it. So given that, I don't think the semi-frictionless free expression is all that different from Thomas Paine's "Common Sense" leaflets of the late 18th century.
zanny 10y ago
It is only sad that people refuse to revisit their assumptions about whatever X is where contradictory voices about X would drive them to think the solution is to cause violence.
- NathanKP 10y ago
  Absolutely. If you are truly confident in your position, and know it is correct then a dissenting voice shouldn't bother you. Instead you should just feel sorry for them. It's the people who can't handle that a dissenting voice is causing cognitive dissonance that feel like violence is the solution.

rmc 10y ago

It's interesting that many who advocate a "free speech über alles" approach have a curious exemption for property rights. They claim the right of Facebook/Twitter/reddit/etc. as privacy companies to control their property (i.e. their websites) apparently trump right to free speech. An earlier free speech article also from the Economist, which is linked from the sidebar[1], claims that private companies should be exempted from free speech rules, and should be allowed to publish, or not publish, anything they want. Should Facebook's property rights overrule my free speech rights? [1] http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21699909-curbs-free-speech-are-growing-tighter-it-time-speak-out-under-attack http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21699909-curbs-free-sp...

theandrewbailey 10y ago
Have you read EULAs these days? Everyone has technically "agreed" that these companies can take down anything they want to on their platform or suspend/delete an account just because they can.
csense 10y ago
If you don't like Facebook's censorship policies, don't use Facebook. I suppose an argument could be made that due to its size, Facebook is sort of like a "utility" and has a duty to provide "service" to everybody regardless of its opinions about their use of the service. But unlike the electric company, which is the only place you can buy electricity, Facebook is not a monopoly: There are plenty of other websites where you can publish your speech (or you can even get your own domain and VPS and host your own site very cheaply).
- rmc 10y ago
  > If you don't like Facebook's censorship policies, don't use Facebook. Why? Don't I have a right to free speech (on Facebook)? Should it be moral for the government to set up small, limited, "free speech zones" far away from everywhere and say "If you want free speech, go here?". (Yes I know that has sorta happened in USA) What about requiring that all bookshops/newspaper sellers in a certain area only sell books/newspapers that don't mention $TOPIC. You're quite free to go to a bookshop 100km away which will sell you anything. Is that not a restriction on free speech?

erikb 10y ago

How did such an anti-freespeech, "islam=murder" promoting article made it to the front page? And is the economist always so traditional, right wingy? I have to say I'm a little shocked of what I'm reading here.

JoeAltmaier 10y ago
Trouble with the Economist, they don't credit anything they write there. No idea who is speaking; not even the Editors get credit. I dismiss them outright, and refuse to read a word.
- orthoganol 10y ago
  Seems obvious that they want to avoid personal repercussions. They very frankly embarrass other countries (deservedly), and they don't want to lose their ability to get a visa or even endanger their own safety.
marcoperaza 10y ago
What? How is this article anti free speech?
- erikb 10y ago
  Now we both got downvoted from all the strong opinions here. I think your question is valid. If you read the text about the president needing to speak to a priest it is considered very bad that a person with a lot of military power needs to get so low and talk to a normal person without any military power directly. My interpretation of that kind of comment is that it feels anti free speech, pro surveilance, pro censorship.

Tepix 10y ago

Relevant link: Andrew Cuomo and Other Democrats Launch Severe Attack on Free Speech to Protect Israel https://theintercept.com/2016/06/06/andrew-cuomo-and-other-democrats-launch-severe-attack-on-free-speech-to-protect-israel/ https://theintercept.com/2016/06/06/andrew-cuomo-and-other-d...

Cyph0n 10y ago
Yep, the response to the BDS movement is the definition of double-standards. It's also proof that Israel loves to pull the anti-Semite card whenever it feels like it.

kingkawn 10y ago

It is comforting to believe in increasing speech suppression when I can't think of meaningful things to say.

andrewclunn 10y ago

Are we AGAIN promoting that BS lie that this film was responsible for the attacks on the embassy in Libya? That's a lie that just won't die.

deleted 10y ago

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qxmat 10y ago

My partner has spent 30 minutes sitting in your lobby. If someone from the Economist is reading this, please ensure it doesn't happen to the next candidate as it's extremely unprofessional and a huge red flag.

maxerickson 10y ago

Measuring progress is hard. 100 years ago, a person in the wrong place in the United States who happened to say something someone else didn't like might end up getting murdered by a mob. I guess that is getting to be a long time ago, but history should not be viewed with a tight lens.

H0n3sty 10y ago

The behavior pattern described is basically the collision of honour culture (belief in retribution) and victimhood culture (easily taking offense). https://www.researchgate.net/publication/272408166_Microaggression_and_Moral_Cultures https://www.researchgate.net/publication/272408166_Microaggr...

retube 10y ago

The problem with the free speech debate is everyone has a different definition or understanding of what free speech is. Free speech should be considered the right to publically criticise and call to account governments, police, judiciary and other state institutions. It should not mean the right to say absolutely anything to anybody. Having laws on racism and hate speech (for example) provide well-meaning guidance on acceptable behaviour within civilised society and help reduce discrimination, bias etc. But like all rights "free speech" confers privilege and responsibility on the holder: just because you have a right to doesn't mean you should (e.g the video referenced at the beginning of the article).

talmand 10y ago
The problem as I see it; define "hate speech".
- retube 10y ago
  Sure but the definition of anything is subject to interpretation/context/intent etc. If you dealt only in absolutes it would be impossible to have any laws at all. Even defining something like "murder" has plenty of room for grey areas. But still I hope we agree that having a "no murder" law is probably desirable in society.
  - talmand 10y ago
    Ok, no definition then. That's fine. The point I'm making is that once you've opened the door to banning speech on completely subjective topics that a subset of the group gets to decide, then things will go bad. But murder is a hugely different subject than something so abstract as "hate speech". I can define murder, I ask one to define hate speech. There is definite evidence of harm when it comes to murder, a person has been deprived of life by another. I fail to see how "hate speech" itself deprives anyone of anything nor causes real harm. Of course, incitement to violence due to speech is a potential problem, but that's already covered by existing laws.
    - 10y ago

Jerry2 10y ago

Canada has blasphemy laws [1]? I knew they had "hate speech" laws which basically meant that they could prosecute you for saying anything that some might find offensive but I had no idea about blasphemy. Scary. [1] http://cdn.static-economist.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/original-size/images/print-edition/20160604_IRM900.png http://cdn.static-economist.com/sites/default/files/imagecac...

known 10y ago

"If you don't read a newspaper you are uninformed. If you do read a newspaper, you are misinformed." --Mark Twain

l3m0ndr0p 10y ago

What we will see more and more in America is the privatization of all "public" utilities and services (schools->charter, Libraries-->?). This will enable and allow these non-public corporations to enact and enforce censorship. Since the "free" speech applies mostly to our Government interactions, it won't apply to "private" corporate institutions. They will be outside of the constitution of the US. America must wake up to what is happening. It's not too late. We Americans must always be able to speak our minds no matter how offensive, true or false. But we must also never harm ourselves or each other. This should also apply to Government and Corporations. We must always hold those in "power" accountable for their actions public or private. Peace

usrusr 10y ago

This "right not to be offended" a part of the article is talking about is such a Trojan horse. Groups are not claiming a right not to be offended, they are claiming the right to feel "mortally" offended, giving them leverage to pursue goals often not that much related to the original act of offending speech. Since it is the offended who get to define what offends them, the term "right, not to be offended" falls quite short of the actual problem. Everybody already is perfectly free to not feel offended by anything. This right is a given, everywhere. So the only thing remaining to claim is the right to declare stuff as offending at will and force those decisions on others.