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There is, of course, an obvious issue with this argument: if it becomes acceptable to silence "extreme" speech, then all someone has to do to justify silencing
by makomk 10y ago
There is, of course, an obvious issue with this argument: if it becomes acceptable to silence "extreme" speech, then all someone has to do to justify silencing their enemies is convince the world that those people are extremists. It doesn't matter if this isn't true since the targets can hardly speak up against it, and anyone who speaks up for them risks the same treatment. By abandoning the idea of free speech in the name of fighting extremist speech we give up our ability to determine who is actually an extremist. (Of course, in the current climate this might be seen as a feature.)
- fatbird 10y agoI don't know why discussions of free speech always treat it as a binary, where we have it or don't. As a practical matter, banning Nazi hate speech as Germany does, doesn't mean Germans have no freedom of expression, they just have less, if what you're measuring is the number of topics on which you may freely express yourself. On the other hand, if you measure freedom of speech by how many can exercise it, you might come out ahead by preventing Nazis from holding rallies, since their rallies have an intimidating effect. If your goal is to maximize freedom of expression (as it should be), then you should be considering who's prevented from expressing themselves. HN is a great organic example of this: the moderators here have been cracking down on abusive behaviour for a while now, and this has had a positive effect on the discussions, which are more polite and seem to have a lot more participation from a wider segment.
- SomeStupidPoint 10y agoExcept that I've seen legitimate dissenting opinions routinely killed on HN threads, because they go against groupthink. Maybe more people participate, but we're just seeing more of the bulk views, not more diversity of viewpoint, because the people joining are moderates with common views. I, personally, want to optimize freedom of speech to give me the most diversity of exposure -- something I think more aggressive downvoting and moderation stifles.
- fatbird 10y agoFair argument, once you recognize that we're choosing metrics on which to optimize/maximize this particular freedom.