3 ms·

If freedom of speech is important, speech must have the power to have real consequences. If something has real consequences, those can be either bad, good, or n

If freedom of speech is important, speech must have the power to have real consequences. If something has real consequences, those can be either bad, good, or neutral. If all consequences of speech were neutral or positive, we could make the world a better place by connecting a source of randomness with a text-to-speech synthesiser. But that's absurd. Therefore, speech has the ability to harm. The distinction between "words" and "actions" is meaningless, as is already obvious from your inclusion of harassment in your list of actions. Because harassment is also just speech.

sametmax 9y ago
No, harassment is the action of repeatedly crafting then using deliberately harmful speech toward a specific target. It's not about the speech at all. The speech can change. The combination of repetition, intention of harm, and specific target can not. And you speak about consequences, but those consequences are the one that should be punished. Because you can assess consequences. You can evaluate damages. You can't evaluate the value of words. If you say "kill the xx" one time, it really doesn't matter. If you say "kill the xx" and that it leads to attempt to kill, then the problem is the intent to kill. Otherwise South park / Rick and Morty could not exist.
- matt4077 9y ago
  > deliberately harmful speech So there is harmful speech. Thanks. > Otherwise South park / Rick and Morty could not exist. South Park is freely shown on TV stations in basically any country that has enough of an audience to make economic sense. Every single one of those countries has more restrictive laws regarding hate speech, yet they also seem to have the capability to distinguish between a TV show and and armed mob with swastikas.