3 ms·

Oh the other hand what about, Milo pushing his followers to send Leslie Jones racist imagery and slurs on Twitter? Is that an idea, or inciting a mob?

geofft 9y ago
Yup, exactly. To be clear about my position, I believe that "free speech" is an impractical ideal, and we as a society need to be clear about what sorts of speech we value and what we don't, and if we don't do that, we're left with one of two bad options: either we have to err so hard on the side of free speech that we can't ban threats or incitement to violence or anything at all, or we let the government define "threats" in a way that is prone to government abuse just like everything else is.
- eradicatethots 9y ago
  As the OP says, if you ban speech you are marking it as permanently unthinkable.
  - s73ver_ 9y ago
    In the case of, say, social media platforms banning violent threats against their other users, is that a bad thing?
  - geofft 9y ago
    That's asserted by the OP, but I don't think that claim is supported by the OP or by his sources. I argue that banning speech (as a speech act) and banning ideas are different things. To pick a sort of pedantic counterexample, banning me from yelling a racial slur at you in public more than once isn't making anything unthinkable. I can yell it once, other people can yell it at you, I can yell it at others, people can record the yell on YouTube, etc. So, I agree with OP's argument that we should not ban ideas, and I do agree that speech is necessary to communicate ideas (of course), but I think that banning some speech acts can be entirely defensible. (Also, remember that every functioning advanced society bans several forms of speech already - a good example is that I am banned from using a trademark without authorization from the trademark holder, or from reproducing copyrighted material, or from making defamatory claims.)
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]

geofft 9y ago

Yup, exactly. To be clear about my position, I believe that "free speech" is an impractical ideal, and we as a society need to be clear about what sorts of speech we value and what we don't, and if we don't do that, we're left with one of two bad options: either we have to err so hard on the side of free speech that we can't ban threats or incitement to violence or anything at all, or we let the government define "threats" in a way that is prone to government abuse just like everything else is.

eradicatethots 9y ago
As the OP says, if you ban speech you are marking it as permanently unthinkable.
- s73ver_ 9y ago
  In the case of, say, social media platforms banning violent threats against their other users, is that a bad thing?
- geofft 9y ago
  That's asserted by the OP, but I don't think that claim is supported by the OP or by his sources. I argue that banning speech (as a speech act) and banning ideas are different things. To pick a sort of pedantic counterexample, banning me from yelling a racial slur at you in public more than once isn't making anything unthinkable. I can yell it once, other people can yell it at you, I can yell it at others, people can record the yell on YouTube, etc. So, I agree with OP's argument that we should not ban ideas, and I do agree that speech is necessary to communicate ideas (of course), but I think that banning some speech acts can be entirely defensible. (Also, remember that every functioning advanced society bans several forms of speech already - a good example is that I am banned from using a trademark without authorization from the trademark holder, or from reproducing copyrighted material, or from making defamatory claims.)
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]