4 ms·

Yelling "fire!" in a crowded theater is not generally recognized as political speech. At what point is it acceptable to ban unpopular political speech, provide

by sk5t 9y ago

Yelling "fire!" in a crowded theater is not generally recognized as political speech. At what point is it acceptable to ban unpopular political speech, provided that speech is not a direct incitement to riot/violence?

JumpCrisscross 9y ago
> At what point is it acceptable to ban unpopular political speech, provided that speech is not a direct incitement to riot/violence? Nobody is banning Nazi speech in America. Private citizens are just saying they don't want to be part of it. As many others have said, the Daily Stormer will find name servers and hosting partners in the same part of the Internet that brings up spam and scam.
kelnos 9y ago
> At what point is it acceptable to ban unpopular political speech, provided that speech is not a direct incitement to riot/violence? I'm not saying it _is_ acceptable to do that. But we are actually talking about political speech that incites people to violence, and I'm ok with banning that. But -- we're not even talking about _that_ here. We're not talking about a government restricting speech, and we're not even talking about an essential, monopolistic company removing a party's only avenue to speech[1]. We're talking about a non-essential internet corporation (for which there are many alternatives!) deciding they don't want to help a hate group spread their message. [1] If their single-option ISP cut them off, we'd probably be having a very different discussion.
thanatropism 9y ago
Jesus. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shouting_fire_in_a_crowded_theater https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shouting_fire_in_a_crowded_the... "Shouting fire in a crowded theory" was actually put forth as a (succesful) argument for censorship of political speech.
- sk5t 9y ago
  Not really--"falsely shouting fire in a crowded theater" was given as an example of inciteful (apolitical) speech clearly within the government's purview to restrain, with the Court going on to opine that (political) speech harmful to the national interest could also be restrained, even if true. A pretty bad decision and partially overturned since...
  - thanatropism 9y ago
    Yet people keep using it as an example of a non-political restriction on free speech..
    - Dylan16807 9y ago
      It's still a good example, even if it's attached to a terrible argument.
- kelnos 9y ago
  Why are you making a distinction? I don't care what kind of speech it is. If the speech itself puts other people in unnecessary danger, I'm fine banning it, regardless of whether or not it's political.

by sk5t 9y ago

JumpCrisscross 9y ago

> At what point is it acceptable to ban unpopular political speech, provided that speech is not a direct incitement to riot/violence? Nobody is banning Nazi speech in America. Private citizens are just saying they don't want to be part of it. As many others have said, the Daily Stormer will find name servers and hosting partners in the same part of the Internet that brings up spam and scam.

kelnos 9y ago

> At what point is it acceptable to ban unpopular political speech, provided that speech is not a direct incitement to riot/violence? I'm not saying it _is_ acceptable to do that. But we are actually talking about political speech that incites people to violence, and I'm ok with banning that. But -- we're not even talking about _that_ here. We're not talking about a government restricting speech, and we're not even talking about an essential, monopolistic company removing a party's only avenue to speech[1]. We're talking about a non-essential internet corporation (for which there are many alternatives!) deciding they don't want to help a hate group spread their message. [1] If their single-option ISP cut them off, we'd probably be having a very different discussion.

thanatropism 9y ago

Jesus. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shouting_fire_in_a_crowded_theater https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shouting_fire_in_a_crowded_the... "Shouting fire in a crowded theory" was actually put forth as a (succesful) argument for censorship of political speech.

sk5t 9y ago
Not really--"falsely shouting fire in a crowded theater" was given as an example of inciteful (apolitical) speech clearly within the government's purview to restrain, with the Court going on to opine that (political) speech harmful to the national interest could also be restrained, even if true. A pretty bad decision and partially overturned since...
- thanatropism 9y ago
  Yet people keep using it as an example of a non-political restriction on free speech..
  - Dylan16807 9y ago
    It's still a good example, even if it's attached to a terrible argument.
kelnos 9y ago
Why are you making a distinction? I don't care what kind of speech it is. If the speech itself puts other people in unnecessary danger, I'm fine banning it, regardless of whether or not it's political.