9 ms·

There is no "getting it right" in free speech. Either you allow free speech or you don't, if you are keeping one controversial thing but kick out the other you

There is no "getting it right" in free speech. Either you allow free speech or you don't, if you are keeping one controversial thing but kick out the other you gave up on free speech. You can't kick someone out because you think its right and claim allowing free spech.

quxbar 9y ago
"People have indeed falsely shouted "Fire!" in crowded public venues and caused panics on numerous occasions, such as at the Royal Surrey Gardens Music Hall of London in 1856, a theater in New York's Harlem neighborhood in 1884,[1] and in the Italian Hall disaster of 1913, which left 73 dead. In the Shiloh Baptist Church disaster of 1902, over 100 people died when "fight" was misheard as "fire" in a crowded church causing a panic and stampede."
- rexpop 9y ago
  And yet, no one has ever died from reading "Fire!" in a crowded theater.
- problems 9y ago
  And that has absolutely nothing to do with political speech. You should probably read into the history on that one too... https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/11/its-time-to-stop-using-the-fire-in-a-crowded-theater-quote/264449/ https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/11/its-tim...
- adventured 9y ago
  The classic example of shouting "Fire!" is in fact not a matter of free speech at all. It's an intentional attempt at physical harm, which falls entirely outside the realm of free of speech. It's identical conceptually to walking up to someone and blasting an airhorn in their ear. That too is an act of physical violence, not free speech, and you're responsible for the consequences (such as hearing damage) just as with the act of shouting "Fire!".
- PKop 9y ago
  The interesting point to think about is not restrictions on telling lies to incite panic & possible injury... but rather, restrictions on telling the truth, such as outlawing shouting "Fire!" in a crowded theater when there's actually a fire. This is what defining "right think" means, where you have to confine your discourse to what is socially acceptable, whether or not what you're saying is true. This is the real problem, and vague corporate or government policies outlawing "hate speech" are vague, subjective, Orwellian, and don't event attempt to assess truthiness or falsiness.. they appeal to hurt feelings. Which are always and forever in the eye of the beholder. A hecklers veto to ideas one disagrees with. It's beyond scary that so many smart people here and around the country & world are perfectly fine to go down this road...
ngold 9y ago
Patreon is not a government body. If you host a bake sale open to everyone in your house, you can and should kick out the screaming lunatics that keep making a mess. The screaming lunatics are free to host their own bake sale at their house.
- Hydraulix989 9y ago
  Even though it's not a governing body, consumers and content creators both might still value free speech in any kind of marketplace/middleman regardless. Government is a sufficient but not necessary condition for upholding free speech.
- syshum 9y ago
  >>Patreon is not a government body. Ok, and. Do you believe only governments are a threat to free speech? Free Speech is a concept that every person, every company, every government should work to up hold. While governments can and have been the source of censorship, that is not the only source. Today free speech is under massive assault not by Government but by Society at large, society it seems have lost all respect for the concept, instead of holding the position of "I disagree with what you say but I will fight for your right to say it" people instead hold the idea "I disagree with what you say so I will boycott companies that hire you, or allow you to speak, or do anything to even tangentially associate themselves with you" and increasingly people have the position of "I disagree with you so I will punch you in the face" This is very very scary and is direct assault on free speech.
  - sean1rose 9y ago
    I think what he meant is that the 1st Amendment doesn't apply to private actors, which uhhh, is true.
  - scottLobster 9y ago
    No it isn't, it's an exercise in property rights and a reminder that most of the "internet" as we know it, including this very board, is private property. Barring a legally binding contract or criminal activity, no one is under any obligation to protect the civil rights of those on their property. If I wanted to hold a "whites only" house party and turn away minorities at the door, I can do that. If I refuse to allow protesters to use my front lawn as a staging area, I can do that. If I own a website and someone says something I don't like, I can ban them. If someone doesn't like Patreon's policies then they are welcome to start Conservatreon. I think the scarier prospect is people thinking that property holders should be forced to act as law enforcement within their domains, and to make determinations about civil rights. Sure it may seem rosy for free speech, but you're opening the flood gates with that one. Free speech simply says that you can't be arrested for speaking. It doesn't say people have to listen, and forcing people to listen is only going to worsen the situation you describe.
jkeat 9y ago
I don't think Patreon or any similar company would take the inevitable PR blows to satisfy a few free speech purists, and those few lack the numbers to support an ungoverned alternative. It's unfortunate that digital infrastructure that relies on a critical mass often has to come to fruition in the form of a business.
LeifCarrotson 9y ago
You can find a happy medium, allowing all but the most egregious things. Human judgement isn't perfect, but it's good enough, because ban-worthy content is relatively rare. Freedom of speech is like personal liberty: Do what you want without harming others. Want to talk politics from a moderate, conservative, liberal, socialist, or libertarian perspective? Sure. But advocating violent revolution is something different. There's a lot of room between a totalitarian Ministry of Thought and enabling actively harmful extremism.
s73ver 9y ago
Sure there is. Free speech doesn't give you an excuse to behave terribly, such as doxxing and the like.
azernik 9y ago
That is a very US-centric view of free speech. In many other (developed, democratic) countries, a lot of the shit 8chan does would be viewed as incitement to violence, hate speech, and/or invasion of privacy. The absolutist conception of free speech in the US is an outlier.
- Simon_says 9y ago
  If those activities are crimes in a country, then prosecute the crime. It shouldn't be up to a random middle-man like Patreon to be judge and jury and make those (sometimes very difficult) decisions. It's akin to my grocery deciding to not sell me an apple because I'm a suspected murderer. There are better and more formalized methods to deal with violations of social norms.
  - Retric 9y ago
    This is a little more direct of a connection. If a someone shows up and orders 5 tons of ammonium nitrate in December and want's it shipped to Washington DC that's very much a reason to decline and possibly contact law enforcement even as a private citizen. Similarly, free speech has never been an invitation to say anything in any way at any time.
  - btym 9y ago
    >It's akin to my grocery deciding to not sell me an apple because I'm a suspected murderer. In this analogy, you're probably suspected of fruit-related crimes. Patreon isn't obligated to enable criminal behavior.
- _delirium 9y ago
  Even in the U.S. most corporate-run platforms are fairly restrictive, many more restrictive than Patreon. Speech on commercial platforms has a completely different set of norms in the U.S. than speech in government-controlled or public spaces. This has actually caused Patreon trouble in the past, because on some axes they're less restrictive than U.S. corporate norms, which has caused friction with other companies they deal with who want them to restrict their userbase more. For example they've had trouble with Paypal over allowing not-porn-but-still-NSFW Patreons on the platform, which violates Paypal's no adult content policy. I believe they worked around that by allowing those users to stay on Patreon but restricting them to take only CC payments and not Paypal payments.
door 9y ago
even the most insane libertarian couldn't defend that position. by your definition doxing, targeted harassment and child pornagraphy is "free speech" free speech means everyone can participate in a marketplace of ideas, where competing perspectives challenge each other to expose the truth. i don't think you could defend targeted harassment and advocacy of violence by that measure.
door 9y ago
even the most insane libertarian couldn't defend that position. by your definition doxing, targeted harassment and child pornagraphy is "free speech" free speech means everyone can participate in a marketplace of ideas, where competing perspectives challenge each other to expose the truth. i don't think you could defend targeted harassment and advocacy of violence by that measure.
Erwin 9y ago
So does USA have free speech, given laws like this? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Threatening_the_President_of_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Threatening_the_President_of_t...
manigandham 9y ago
This has nothing to do with free speech, which is protection from government prosecution only (and even then it's tempered by certain situations like threatening attacks against others). Private organizations or communities can do whatever they want. It's frustrating to constantly see the same argument as if everyone must be allowed on every platform - that's simply not the case.
tanilama 9y ago
Free speech doesn't mean without consequence, you said nasty things people don't agree, they can choose to not offer you service, just like how restaurants do, and it is entirely within their freedom of speech.
- PKop 9y ago
  That's not the point... the point is, these platforms get large & controlling, and become the only game in town (by their nature, network effects and all), and people will get sick of playing the game. Decentralized uncensorable platforms will take their place, funded by currency that cannot by blocked.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
BearGoesChirp 9y ago
>Either you allow free speech or you don't, If we reduce free speech to a binary yes/no, then almost no where has free speech because everywhere has limits on what it will allow. They might have as free of speech as legally possible. They may even allow some illegal content (stuff that is technically illegal but three letter agencies won't spend time hunting you down for hosting). But if we have it as a binary option, then no where has free speech. Also, to somewhat contradict what I just said, most places don't even have 'as allowed to the maximum extent of the law' free speech. A really good test, would a website support nude non-pornographic images that aren't illegal (at least by federal US statute) but which most everyone will assume are illegal at first glance? I'm willing to bet they won't.

quxbar 9y ago

"People have indeed falsely shouted "Fire!" in crowded public venues and caused panics on numerous occasions, such as at the Royal Surrey Gardens Music Hall of London in 1856, a theater in New York's Harlem neighborhood in 1884,[1] and in the Italian Hall disaster of 1913, which left 73 dead. In the Shiloh Baptist Church disaster of 1902, over 100 people died when "fight" was misheard as "fire" in a crowded church causing a panic and stampede."

rexpop 9y ago
And yet, no one has ever died from reading "Fire!" in a crowded theater.
problems 9y ago
And that has absolutely nothing to do with political speech. You should probably read into the history on that one too... https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/11/its-time-to-stop-using-the-fire-in-a-crowded-theater-quote/264449/ https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/11/its-tim...
adventured 9y ago
The classic example of shouting "Fire!" is in fact not a matter of free speech at all. It's an intentional attempt at physical harm, which falls entirely outside the realm of free of speech. It's identical conceptually to walking up to someone and blasting an airhorn in their ear. That too is an act of physical violence, not free speech, and you're responsible for the consequences (such as hearing damage) just as with the act of shouting "Fire!".
PKop 9y ago
The interesting point to think about is not restrictions on telling lies to incite panic & possible injury... but rather, restrictions on telling the truth, such as outlawing shouting "Fire!" in a crowded theater when there's actually a fire. This is what defining "right think" means, where you have to confine your discourse to what is socially acceptable, whether or not what you're saying is true. This is the real problem, and vague corporate or government policies outlawing "hate speech" are vague, subjective, Orwellian, and don't event attempt to assess truthiness or falsiness.. they appeal to hurt feelings. Which are always and forever in the eye of the beholder. A hecklers veto to ideas one disagrees with. It's beyond scary that so many smart people here and around the country & world are perfectly fine to go down this road...

ngold 9y ago

Patreon is not a government body. If you host a bake sale open to everyone in your house, you can and should kick out the screaming lunatics that keep making a mess. The screaming lunatics are free to host their own bake sale at their house.

Hydraulix989 9y ago
Even though it's not a governing body, consumers and content creators both might still value free speech in any kind of marketplace/middleman regardless. Government is a sufficient but not necessary condition for upholding free speech.
syshum 9y ago
>>Patreon is not a government body. Ok, and. Do you believe only governments are a threat to free speech? Free Speech is a concept that every person, every company, every government should work to up hold. While governments can and have been the source of censorship, that is not the only source. Today free speech is under massive assault not by Government but by Society at large, society it seems have lost all respect for the concept, instead of holding the position of "I disagree with what you say but I will fight for your right to say it" people instead hold the idea "I disagree with what you say so I will boycott companies that hire you, or allow you to speak, or do anything to even tangentially associate themselves with you" and increasingly people have the position of "I disagree with you so I will punch you in the face" This is very very scary and is direct assault on free speech.
- sean1rose 9y ago
  I think what he meant is that the 1st Amendment doesn't apply to private actors, which uhhh, is true.
- scottLobster 9y ago
  No it isn't, it's an exercise in property rights and a reminder that most of the "internet" as we know it, including this very board, is private property. Barring a legally binding contract or criminal activity, no one is under any obligation to protect the civil rights of those on their property. If I wanted to hold a "whites only" house party and turn away minorities at the door, I can do that. If I refuse to allow protesters to use my front lawn as a staging area, I can do that. If I own a website and someone says something I don't like, I can ban them. If someone doesn't like Patreon's policies then they are welcome to start Conservatreon. I think the scarier prospect is people thinking that property holders should be forced to act as law enforcement within their domains, and to make determinations about civil rights. Sure it may seem rosy for free speech, but you're opening the flood gates with that one. Free speech simply says that you can't be arrested for speaking. It doesn't say people have to listen, and forcing people to listen is only going to worsen the situation you describe.

jkeat 9y ago

I don't think Patreon or any similar company would take the inevitable PR blows to satisfy a few free speech purists, and those few lack the numbers to support an ungoverned alternative. It's unfortunate that digital infrastructure that relies on a critical mass often has to come to fruition in the form of a business.

LeifCarrotson 9y ago

You can find a happy medium, allowing all but the most egregious things. Human judgement isn't perfect, but it's good enough, because ban-worthy content is relatively rare. Freedom of speech is like personal liberty: Do what you want without harming others. Want to talk politics from a moderate, conservative, liberal, socialist, or libertarian perspective? Sure. But advocating violent revolution is something different. There's a lot of room between a totalitarian Ministry of Thought and enabling actively harmful extremism.

s73ver 9y ago

Sure there is. Free speech doesn't give you an excuse to behave terribly, such as doxxing and the like.

azernik 9y ago

That is a very US-centric view of free speech. In many other (developed, democratic) countries, a lot of the shit 8chan does would be viewed as incitement to violence, hate speech, and/or invasion of privacy. The absolutist conception of free speech in the US is an outlier.

Simon_says 9y ago
If those activities are crimes in a country, then prosecute the crime. It shouldn't be up to a random middle-man like Patreon to be judge and jury and make those (sometimes very difficult) decisions. It's akin to my grocery deciding to not sell me an apple because I'm a suspected murderer. There are better and more formalized methods to deal with violations of social norms.
- Retric 9y ago
  This is a little more direct of a connection. If a someone shows up and orders 5 tons of ammonium nitrate in December and want's it shipped to Washington DC that's very much a reason to decline and possibly contact law enforcement even as a private citizen. Similarly, free speech has never been an invitation to say anything in any way at any time.
- btym 9y ago
  >It's akin to my grocery deciding to not sell me an apple because I'm a suspected murderer. In this analogy, you're probably suspected of fruit-related crimes. Patreon isn't obligated to enable criminal behavior.
_delirium 9y ago
Even in the U.S. most corporate-run platforms are fairly restrictive, many more restrictive than Patreon. Speech on commercial platforms has a completely different set of norms in the U.S. than speech in government-controlled or public spaces. This has actually caused Patreon trouble in the past, because on some axes they're less restrictive than U.S. corporate norms, which has caused friction with other companies they deal with who want them to restrict their userbase more. For example they've had trouble with Paypal over allowing not-porn-but-still-NSFW Patreons on the platform, which violates Paypal's no adult content policy. I believe they worked around that by allowing those users to stay on Patreon but restricting them to take only CC payments and not Paypal payments.

door 9y ago

even the most insane libertarian couldn't defend that position. by your definition doxing, targeted harassment and child pornagraphy is "free speech" free speech means everyone can participate in a marketplace of ideas, where competing perspectives challenge each other to expose the truth. i don't think you could defend targeted harassment and advocacy of violence by that measure.

door 9y ago

Erwin 9y ago

So does USA have free speech, given laws like this? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Threatening_the_President_of_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Threatening_the_President_of_t...

manigandham 9y ago

This has nothing to do with free speech, which is protection from government prosecution only (and even then it's tempered by certain situations like threatening attacks against others). Private organizations or communities can do whatever they want. It's frustrating to constantly see the same argument as if everyone must be allowed on every platform - that's simply not the case.

tanilama 9y ago

Free speech doesn't mean without consequence, you said nasty things people don't agree, they can choose to not offer you service, just like how restaurants do, and it is entirely within their freedom of speech.

PKop 9y ago
That's not the point... the point is, these platforms get large & controlling, and become the only game in town (by their nature, network effects and all), and people will get sick of playing the game. Decentralized uncensorable platforms will take their place, funded by currency that cannot by blocked.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

BearGoesChirp 9y ago

>Either you allow free speech or you don't, If we reduce free speech to a binary yes/no, then almost no where has free speech because everywhere has limits on what it will allow. They might have as free of speech as legally possible. They may even allow some illegal content (stuff that is technically illegal but three letter agencies won't spend time hunting you down for hosting). But if we have it as a binary option, then no where has free speech. Also, to somewhat contradict what I just said, most places don't even have 'as allowed to the maximum extent of the law' free speech. A really good test, would a website support nude non-pornographic images that aren't illegal (at least by federal US statute) but which most everyone will assume are illegal at first glance? I'm willing to bet they won't.