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Another cowardly "free speech but..." Either you support free speech (including Nazis or whatever today's boogeyman is) or you don't support free speech at all.

Another cowardly "free speech but..." Either you support free speech (including Nazis or whatever today's boogeyman is) or you don't support free speech at all. Claiming you support free speech only when you like the speech is abjectly idiotic. When you start blocking people from using your service for their speech, it's time to stop calling yourself the "free speech registrar."

archagon 9y ago
Why does it have to be either/or? Society does not operate by strictly logical principles. I see no problem with "mostly free speech, except for extremists".
- briholt 9y ago
  "Extremists" like that communist agitator Martin Luther King and all those "extremist" satanic homosexuals spreading AIDS? Good thing we stopped them from speaking, right? Go to Saudi Arabia, they support free speech, except for those extremists who claim Mohamed wasn't the true prophet of Allah. Back in the USSR they supported free speech, except for those extremists who undermined worker morale. Pretending you and your allies can quasi-objectively categorize "extremists" is exactly the sort of mass delusion we need free speech to prevent.
  - Rusky 9y ago
    The particular speech in question matters here at some level, doesn't it? Society is messy and collaborative, and applying a first amendment-style rule to literally everyone on literally every subject is untenable. In a sense it's even paradoxical. You can't say that everyone must uphold free speech on every subject without restricting their own freedom in some way.
    - pizza 9y ago
      The paradox being "either 'everyone must let others speak freely' or 'you are free to decide when others can't speak freely' but not both?" Why would this paradox arise in a just society? Specifically the second condition. My (Kantian) ethical justification for the first is "in any situation where I use the rule, I would want its use to be universally established", whereas in the second condition it is clearly false to say that every situation where I restrict someone else's speech coexists with my desire for everyone else to decide when another's speech should be restricted, since my desire to censor and my opponent's opposite desire would contradict that I am acting how I would if I wanted the rule to be universal. Isn't the only freedom you're restricting by upholding free speech, the freedom to arbitrarily restrict freedoms all for the sake of promoting big-picture freedom? I find it hard to see this as consistent. What kinds of scenarios do you see as too messy/exceptional/extraordinary where freedom of speech becomes a self-imposed restriction?
      - Rusky 9y ago
        "you are free to decide when others can't speak freely" is a bit reductionist considering we're talking about a platform providing the capability for others' speech. Other situations that introduce nuance are private spaces, individuals' social media feeds, etc. It's not about "freedom" to restrict others' speech- it's about freedom not to support it or to listen to it.
        pizza 9y ago
        Fair enough, I see how providing the medium for another person's actions is different than putting yourself in a position of authority over them. That said, there is an argument to be made that a host should not worry that they are partly to blame for, or that their non-intervention suggests tacit approval of, a user's detestable messages - simply because the host just isn't accountable for the user's actions. The solution to not supporting it, imo, is to be explicit about the host's scope of permissions and banned content right up front, before problems occur, because then the responsibility for the user to not do so is recorded. [If the agreement clause is really vague and allows nearly anything, it doesn't change that the user can expect it to be used.] Freedom to not listen to speech is in my opinion just as valid as the freedom to speak; maybe I'd call it the freedom to silence :P [An extreme example of Kant is that, if a murderer asks, you should tell them where the person they say they are going to kill is, instead of lying. The reason goes: right and wrong having nothing to do with morality (universal law) so you can't justify lying to the murderer if you see them as a person who is an end in themselves- rather the lie is a way to pursue a right and wrong based in single situation hypotheticals (whether you should manipulate the murderer to save lives), which means it can't derive its value to you from being universally applicable, from not originating from a categorical truth. The reason although people are worth more than a means, you still can't mislead the murderer so as to protect a valuable life, is that the potential murderer, also an undeniable end in themselves, is the one upon whom the responsibility for the murder should be placed - you are not responsible whether or not the murderer tells the truth that they will kill or if they lie. They are still totally free to choose not to murder the person after you give their location away anyway. Do I think I would act this way? I really don't think so. Another way to resolve it is to keep quiet lol]
    - briholt 9y ago
      No.
- pbhjpbhj 9y ago
  Which is not free speech, just "our particular bias on liberal speech", if that's what your doing advertise that. No need to lie, surely?
- baby 9y ago
  Conpletely agree. Most of the arguments I see on the subject are "slippery slope" arguments tbat imo end up doing more bad than good. Freedom of speech should not exist for people who do not want freedom of speech (e.g. nazis). It's similar To your liberty ends where the liberty of others begins.
  - tylersmith 9y ago
    "Freedom of speech should not exist for people who do not want freedom of speech" This sounds like a conundrum to me. If you think groups should not have free speech if they don't support free speech, then you don't support free speech and shouldn't be allowed to speak.
    - baby 9y ago
      You're playing on the details, this could be rephrased like the previous sentence: "your freedom of speech ends where the freedom of speech of others begins"
- submersiveblue 9y ago
  What is free speech for if not to protect "extremist" speech? Under your rubric, we'll just call whatever we don't like "extremism" and suppress it and that would be allowing free speech.
- leeleelee 9y ago
  Because then you're just applying a subjective set of rules and only protecting speech you agree with. The purpose of free speech is to ensure a world where no entity (such as the government) can dictate what is acceptable and unacceptable speech based on the sole views whatever party happens to be in control. I.e. do you want a trump administration to modify free speech to be "mostly free speech, except for extremists"? Do you think your view of extremists closely aligns with their view?
- guilhas 9y ago
  Because extremists exist, and are a product of society. You can hide them, but that does not solve the issue.
- charonn0 9y ago
  Free speech protections are even more important when the speaker is labelled "extreme" by the powers that be.
- forgottenpass 9y ago
  Why does it have to be either/or? Because principles only count when they're uncomfortable to uphold. A principle that is only exercised in defense of the already-palatable is hollow and worthless. There can be exceptions to principle, but each one is an encroachment that rightly raises questions whether the person making the exception is shirking responsibility. The most palatable cases are when both principles co-exist in a way that they minimize the amount they compromise eachother's purpose. For example: A defense of copyright creating a limit to free speech generally rests on an argument that such a restriction doesn't undermine purpose of free speech. The argument assets that free speech is primarily about sharing ideas that are contemporaneously unpalatable, or disruptive/subversive to existing power structures. Copyright doesn't prevent a speaker from expressing ideas also expressed in copywritten works, and it even offers many ways in which a speaker could quote a protected work verbatim. On the other hand, structuring bounds of speech as "free, except when I really don't like it" is harder to defend as a commitment to free speech. It is counter to the very purpose of free speech to defend the unpalatable. There is certainly an argument to be made here that a limit both has a good reason and minimizes the amount of speech it preempts, but nobody is presenting one. And until they make that case, and make it very convincing, others are right to consider it an abandonment of principle.
PrimHelios 9y ago
Harassing someone isn't free speech, my dude. Nobody is going to host TDS anymore simply because they started breaking laws. Nobody wanted to host them before but did it out of principle, but the Nazism combined with harassing the family of a dead girl is a death sentence for their site. Free speech doesn't mean people have to listen or even give you a platform. Nobody but the government is bound by the first amendment. Read up on the laws you're talking about.
- briholt 9y ago
  > because they started breaking laws I'd prefer the court system decide who has broken which laws, rather than domain registrars or random internet commenters.

archagon 9y ago

Why does it have to be either/or? Society does not operate by strictly logical principles. I see no problem with "mostly free speech, except for extremists".

briholt 9y ago
"Extremists" like that communist agitator Martin Luther King and all those "extremist" satanic homosexuals spreading AIDS? Good thing we stopped them from speaking, right? Go to Saudi Arabia, they support free speech, except for those extremists who claim Mohamed wasn't the true prophet of Allah. Back in the USSR they supported free speech, except for those extremists who undermined worker morale. Pretending you and your allies can quasi-objectively categorize "extremists" is exactly the sort of mass delusion we need free speech to prevent.
- Rusky 9y ago
  The particular speech in question matters here at some level, doesn't it? Society is messy and collaborative, and applying a first amendment-style rule to literally everyone on literally every subject is untenable. In a sense it's even paradoxical. You can't say that everyone must uphold free speech on every subject without restricting their own freedom in some way.
  - pizza 9y ago
    The paradox being "either 'everyone must let others speak freely' or 'you are free to decide when others can't speak freely' but not both?" Why would this paradox arise in a just society? Specifically the second condition. My (Kantian) ethical justification for the first is "in any situation where I use the rule, I would want its use to be universally established", whereas in the second condition it is clearly false to say that every situation where I restrict someone else's speech coexists with my desire for everyone else to decide when another's speech should be restricted, since my desire to censor and my opponent's opposite desire would contradict that I am acting how I would if I wanted the rule to be universal. Isn't the only freedom you're restricting by upholding free speech, the freedom to arbitrarily restrict freedoms all for the sake of promoting big-picture freedom? I find it hard to see this as consistent. What kinds of scenarios do you see as too messy/exceptional/extraordinary where freedom of speech becomes a self-imposed restriction?
    - Rusky 9y ago
      "you are free to decide when others can't speak freely" is a bit reductionist considering we're talking about a platform providing the capability for others' speech. Other situations that introduce nuance are private spaces, individuals' social media feeds, etc. It's not about "freedom" to restrict others' speech- it's about freedom not to support it or to listen to it.
      - pizza 9y ago
        Fair enough, I see how providing the medium for another person's actions is different than putting yourself in a position of authority over them. That said, there is an argument to be made that a host should not worry that they are partly to blame for, or that their non-intervention suggests tacit approval of, a user's detestable messages - simply because the host just isn't accountable for the user's actions. The solution to not supporting it, imo, is to be explicit about the host's scope of permissions and banned content right up front, before problems occur, because then the responsibility for the user to not do so is recorded. [If the agreement clause is really vague and allows nearly anything, it doesn't change that the user can expect it to be used.] Freedom to not listen to speech is in my opinion just as valid as the freedom to speak; maybe I'd call it the freedom to silence :P [An extreme example of Kant is that, if a murderer asks, you should tell them where the person they say they are going to kill is, instead of lying. The reason goes: right and wrong having nothing to do with morality (universal law) so you can't justify lying to the murderer if you see them as a person who is an end in themselves- rather the lie is a way to pursue a right and wrong based in single situation hypotheticals (whether you should manipulate the murderer to save lives), which means it can't derive its value to you from being universally applicable, from not originating from a categorical truth. The reason although people are worth more than a means, you still can't mislead the murderer so as to protect a valuable life, is that the potential murderer, also an undeniable end in themselves, is the one upon whom the responsibility for the murder should be placed - you are not responsible whether or not the murderer tells the truth that they will kill or if they lie. They are still totally free to choose not to murder the person after you give their location away anyway. Do I think I would act this way? I really don't think so. Another way to resolve it is to keep quiet lol]
  - briholt 9y ago
    No.
pbhjpbhj 9y ago
Which is not free speech, just "our particular bias on liberal speech", if that's what your doing advertise that. No need to lie, surely?
baby 9y ago
Conpletely agree. Most of the arguments I see on the subject are "slippery slope" arguments tbat imo end up doing more bad than good. Freedom of speech should not exist for people who do not want freedom of speech (e.g. nazis). It's similar To your liberty ends where the liberty of others begins.
- tylersmith 9y ago
  "Freedom of speech should not exist for people who do not want freedom of speech" This sounds like a conundrum to me. If you think groups should not have free speech if they don't support free speech, then you don't support free speech and shouldn't be allowed to speak.
  - baby 9y ago
    You're playing on the details, this could be rephrased like the previous sentence: "your freedom of speech ends where the freedom of speech of others begins"
submersiveblue 9y ago
What is free speech for if not to protect "extremist" speech? Under your rubric, we'll just call whatever we don't like "extremism" and suppress it and that would be allowing free speech.
leeleelee 9y ago
Because then you're just applying a subjective set of rules and only protecting speech you agree with. The purpose of free speech is to ensure a world where no entity (such as the government) can dictate what is acceptable and unacceptable speech based on the sole views whatever party happens to be in control. I.e. do you want a trump administration to modify free speech to be "mostly free speech, except for extremists"? Do you think your view of extremists closely aligns with their view?
guilhas 9y ago
Because extremists exist, and are a product of society. You can hide them, but that does not solve the issue.
charonn0 9y ago
Free speech protections are even more important when the speaker is labelled "extreme" by the powers that be.
forgottenpass 9y ago
Why does it have to be either/or? Because principles only count when they're uncomfortable to uphold. A principle that is only exercised in defense of the already-palatable is hollow and worthless. There can be exceptions to principle, but each one is an encroachment that rightly raises questions whether the person making the exception is shirking responsibility. The most palatable cases are when both principles co-exist in a way that they minimize the amount they compromise eachother's purpose. For example: A defense of copyright creating a limit to free speech generally rests on an argument that such a restriction doesn't undermine purpose of free speech. The argument assets that free speech is primarily about sharing ideas that are contemporaneously unpalatable, or disruptive/subversive to existing power structures. Copyright doesn't prevent a speaker from expressing ideas also expressed in copywritten works, and it even offers many ways in which a speaker could quote a protected work verbatim. On the other hand, structuring bounds of speech as "free, except when I really don't like it" is harder to defend as a commitment to free speech. It is counter to the very purpose of free speech to defend the unpalatable. There is certainly an argument to be made here that a limit both has a good reason and minimizes the amount of speech it preempts, but nobody is presenting one. And until they make that case, and make it very convincing, others are right to consider it an abandonment of principle.

PrimHelios 9y ago

Harassing someone isn't free speech, my dude. Nobody is going to host TDS anymore simply because they started breaking laws. Nobody wanted to host them before but did it out of principle, but the Nazism combined with harassing the family of a dead girl is a death sentence for their site. Free speech doesn't mean people have to listen or even give you a platform. Nobody but the government is bound by the first amendment. Read up on the laws you're talking about.

briholt 9y ago
> because they started breaking laws I'd prefer the court system decide who has broken which laws, rather than domain registrars or random internet commenters.