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Freedom of Speech is a great idea, but we constantly draw lines around the idea. I strongly believe you should be able to say something I don't like, you should
by lykr0n 8y ago
Freedom of Speech is a great idea, but we constantly draw lines around the idea. I strongly believe you should be able to say something I don't like, you should be able to be critical of the powers that be, but I think in the next few years we're going to see a strong discussion in the US of outlawing willful dissemination of false information. With the advance of tools like Deep Fakes, outrage culture, and the general uptick of "Fake News" we're going to run into this issue. Stuff like this is a precursor I think.
As much as I believe that people should be able to speak their mind, I don't believe people should have legal protection of spreading false information. As we become more interconnected, the risks become too great. I'll defend freedom of speech as much as I can, but I'm not going to defend the ability for someone to lie or make false claims they know are false.
I think you'd change your tune if I took your public information and added it to this list. Maybe you wouln't notice, but I would be mad as hell if this happened to me. Based on what I found of you, I could write up a Medium with information I got from your website and a bit of research on MIT's website saying that nobody should work with you for X or Y because of what you did in College. I'm not calling for anybody to harass you, but it would be a stain on your reputation. In this case, I believe you should be able to sue me or Medium in order to find out who is making these claims against you.
- icebraining 8y agoWhy the need to outlaw more stuff? Claiming false stuff about people is already illegal - it's called defamation. Which is what allows him to sue.
- lykr0n 8y agowith Defamation the victim is the only one that has recourse. I would support a blanket law punishing someone is spreading information that know is false. People who say Vaccines can cause autism can't be sued for defamation, but they could get in trouble for knowingly spreading false information.
- icebraining 8y agoSounds like you'd have jailed Galileo. Science, in particular, requires the freedom to go against "what is known to be false".
- lykr0n 8y agoNo... I don't think what Galileo was preaching was verifiablely false.
- icebraining 8y agoCan you define that standard? What's the threshold for being verifiably false?
- lykr0n 8y agoThere is overwhelming evidence that contradicts what you are saying, yet you keep preaching the invalidated statements you're making for a reason of malice or attempt to influence someone who doesn't know better.
- geofft 8y agoIt was verifiably false in the eyes of the authorities, in their interpretation of the Bible and the deposit of Sacred Tradition. (It was not, as it turned out, verifiably false in the eyes of either scientists or in the eyes of those entrusted with Sacred Tradition 400 years later, but neither of those groups were in power.) If you really think you'd trust the Catholic hierarchy of the 1600s to fairly decide what's verifiably false, we have vastly different understandings of the reason to declare rights like the freedom of speech. I see it as a bright line that makes it obvious to everyone when corrupt and fallible governments are making decisions they shouldn't be making.