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So-called hate speech doesn’t cause harm other than to feelings. It’s constitutionally protected in the US, and Facebook is going down the wrong path trying to

So-called hate speech doesn’t cause harm other than to feelings. It’s constitutionally protected in the US, and Facebook is going down the wrong path trying to eliminate it.

Godel_unicode 8y ago
It's constitutionally protected from the government infringing upon it. As Facebook is not the government, they are perfectly free to limit speech in any way they choose.
- hndamien 8y ago
  Governments should answer to people primarily. Facebook primarily answers to advertisers. This distinction is often forgotten.
- YorkshireSeason 8y ago
  The article can be read as stating that "[Facebook is an] Unseen Branch of Government"
  - prolikewh0a 8y ago
    Social Media will be used to narrow the Overton Window and pull even more rights away and drive society into even further consumerist passivity. They're a private governmet, just like most large corporations now. https://press.princeton.edu/titles/10938.html https://press.princeton.edu/titles/10938.html
- yepguy 8y ago
  What hope does constitutional free speech have for the future if its citizenry doesn't hold the principle dear? The public must actually practice something that approximates the free speech protections they want from the government or else they will lose those protections.
bduerst 8y ago
And hate speech is illegal in some societies, which is just as irrelevant as the US First Amendment because Facebook isn't a government organization.
- monochromatic 8y ago
  Obviously it’s not directly relevant. Think of it as a citation to persuasive authority.
mango7283 8y ago
Yet even here on HN it is possible to get banned for what you type.
manicdee 8y ago
I can choose who to serve in my pub. If you start mouthing off at the other patrons, you will be asked to leave. That is not censorship or silencing, it’s simply advising you that my place is not the place for that kind of behaviour.
- monochromatic 8y ago
  I didn’t say that FB can’t do this. I said it shouldn’t.
- jlawson 8y ago
  If you owned every pub, street, square, coffee shop, theater, restaurant, and other social and public discussion space in the world, do you think it's be fine for you to enforce your arbitrary opinions on everyone in those spaces? What if it's just people discussing things you don't like amongst themselves, with willing speakers and willing listeners?
  - SolaceQuantum 8y ago
    Facebook does not own every public space. Facebook is not, itself, a public space. If one had to guess at it, I would describe it as perhaps a publically-accessible but privately owned space. Even if one decided to host something that would be allowed in public streets (for example a protest rally) the landowner of the space can still kick you out at any time from their property. On the internet, if one wants to express hate speech, there are still websites to do so that may not be Facebook.
    - jlawson 8y ago
      So to you, there is no level of dominance of channels of communication where a corporation takes on some of the responsibility of managing a public space? If they owned everything minus one, you're 100% okay with them censoring anyone for any reason and you think they should face zero criticism of that whatsoever. Because they own it, they can do what they want with it, and property rights are absolute. Just trying to follow your logic (and highlight its incoherence). As for other places to express speech you label "hate speech" - not really. Domain registrars, hosting providers, and payment processors will shut you down. See what happened to SubscribeStar recently. There actually is nowhere to go if the consortium of megacorporations decides they don't like you. Cyberpunk was supposed to be a dystopia but you seem to desperately want to bring it about.
azinman2 8y ago
I can’t tell if you’re trolling or not. I hope so, otherwise I’m very worried for your lack of understanding history and how the world works.
- monochromatic 8y ago
  How was I trolling? (Note that I didn’t say Facebook couldn’t regulate speech—just that it shouldn’t.)
  - aplummer 8y ago
    It’s not constitutionally protected in basically any other western country for example, what is so bad about the way those countries work? Is the USA an improved society because of this?
    - int_19h 8y ago
      > It’s not constitutionally protected in basically any other western country for example, what is so bad about the way those countries work To give just one example, in France, it is currently illegal to wear a t-shirt that says "boycott Israel". https://forward.com/news/breaking-news/323207/france-court-upholds-bds-is-discrimination-ruling/ https://forward.com/news/breaking-news/323207/france-court-u... So yes, USA is an improved society in that regard because of its strong freedom of speech protections. Hopefully we can keep them.
      - aplummer 8y ago
        I’m surprised political speech is not protected specifically as it is in the UK and Australia in France for example, but I still don’t agree the trade off for Nazis is worth it.
        int_19h 8y ago
        > I’m surprised political speech is not protected specifically as it is in the UK and Australia in France for example It is protected. It's just that hate speech is an explicit exception from that rule (which is the whole point of that designation). Most of hate speech is political in some way. So it all boils down to who gets to define what is "hate speech", exactly. > I still don’t agree the trade off for Nazis is worth it. What trade-off? Neo-Nazis flourish in the very same countries that have extensive censorship of their ideologies and speech. Look at Germany with their "streitbare Demokratie" for an example - they don't just censor speech, they outright ban parties solely on the basis of their platforms. And for those efforts, they get yearly neo-Nazi marches that are several times bigger than the one-off we've seen in Charlottesville, and AfD is now the second most popular party. On the other hand, there's this trade-off: https://theintercept.com/2017/08/29/in-europe-hate-speech-laws-are-often-used-to-suppress-and-punish-left-wing-viewpoints/ https://theintercept.com/2017/08/29/in-europe-hate-speech-la...
Animats 8y ago
Yes. Here, Facebook is making a good-faith effort to censor, we can see how difficult a time they are having writing rules for it, and Facebook is being criticized for it. There is no good way to do prior restraint. Read Justice Brandeis' concurring decision in Whitney vs. California.[1] He wrote the classic decision on this subject, and I can't improve on that. "Those who won our independence believed that the final end of the State was to make men free to develop their faculties, and that, in its government, the deliberative forces should prevail over the arbitrary. They valued liberty both as an end, and as a means. They believed liberty to be the secret of happiness, and courage to be the secret of liberty. They believed that freedom to think as you will and to speak as you think are means indispensable to the discovery and spread of political truth; that, without free speech and assembly, discussion would be futile; that, with them, discussion affords ordinarily adequate protection against the dissemination of noxious doctrine; that the greatest menace to freedom is an inert people; that public discussion is a political duty, and that this should be a fundamental principle of the American government. They recognized the risks to which all human institutions are subject. But they knew that order cannot be secured merely through fear of punishment for its infraction; that it is hazardous to discourage thought, hope and imagination; that fear breeds repression; that repression breeds hate; that hate menaces stable government; that the path of safety lies in the opportunity to discuss freely supposed grievances and proposed remedies, and that the fitting remedy for evil counsels is good ones. Believing in the power of reason as applied through public discussion, they eschewed silence coerced by law -- the argument of force in its worst form. Recognizing the occasional tyrannies of governing majorities, they amended the Constitution so that free speech and assembly should be guaranteed." "Fear of serious injury cannot alone justify suppression of free speech and assembly. Men feared witches and burnt women. It is the function of speech to free men from the bondage of irrational fears. To justify suppression of free speech, there must be reasonable ground to fear that serious evil will result if free speech is practiced. There must be reasonable ground to believe that the danger apprehended is imminent. There must be reasonable ground to believe that the evil to be prevented is a serious one. Every denunciation of existing law tends in some measure to increase the probability that there will be violation of it. Condonation of a breach enhances the probability. Expressions of approval add to the probability. Propagation of the criminal state of mind by teaching syndicalism increases it. Advocacy of law-breaking heightens it still further. But even advocacy of violation, however reprehensible morally, is not a justification for denying free speech where the advocacy falls short of incitement and there is nothing to indicate that the advocacy would be immediately acted on. The wide difference between advocacy and incitement, between preparation and attempt, between assembling and conspiracy, must be borne in mind. In order to support a finding of clear and present danger, it must be shown either that immediate serious violence was to be expected or was advocated, or that the past conduct furnished reason to believe that such advocacy was then contemplated." "Those who won our independence by revolution were not cowards. They did not fear political change. They did not exalt order at the cost of liberty. To courageous, self-reliant men, with confidence in the power of free and fearless reasoning applied through the processes of popular government, no danger flowing from speech can be deemed clear and present unless the incidence of the evil apprehended is so imminent that it may befall before there is opportunity for full discussion. If there be time to expose through discussion the falsehood and fallacies, to avert the evil by the processes of education, the remedy to be applied is more speech, not enforced silence. Only an emergency can justify repression. Such must be the rule if authority is to be reconciled with freedom. [n4] Such, in my opinion, is the command of the Constitution. It is therefore always open to Americans to challenge a law abridging free speech and assembly by showing that there was no emergency justifying it." "Moreover, even imminent danger cannot justify resort to prohibition of these functions essential to effective democracy unless the evil apprehended is relatively serious. Prohibition of free speech and assembly is a measure so stringent that it would be inappropriate as the means for averting a relatively trivial harm to society. A police measure may be unconstitutional merely because the remedy, although effective as means of protection, is unduly harsh or oppressive. Thus, a State might, in the exercise of its police power, make any trespass upon the land of another a crime, regardless of the results or of the intent or purpose of the trespasser. It might, also, punish an attempt, a conspiracy, or an incitement to commit the trespass. But it is hardly conceivable that this Court would hold constitutional a statute which punished as a felony the mere voluntary assembly with a society formed to teach that pedestrians had the moral right to cross unenclosed, unposted, wastelands and to advocate their doing so, even if there was imminent danger that advocacy would lead to a trespass. The fact that speech is likely to result in some violence or in destruction of property is not enough to justify its suppression. There must be the probability of serious injury to the State. Among free men, the deterrents ordinarily to be applied to prevent crime are education and punishment for violations of the law, not abridgment of the rights of free speech and assembly." Note the standard Brandeis laid down: "In order to support a finding of clear and present danger, it must be shown either that immediate serious violence was to be expected or was advocated, or that the past conduct furnished reason to believe that such advocacy was then contemplated." "Immediate serious violence". That's the US standard for prior restraint. That's what Facebook, as a US company, should be using. [1] https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/274/357#writing-USSC_CR_0274_0357_ZC https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/274/357#writin...
wnmurphy 8y ago
You've clearly never heard of "stochastic terrorism". Words have consequences, and hate speech can have serious consequences. Just because something is included under blanket protections doesn't mean it's harmless to society.
- rockerbalboa 8y ago
  Yep, I have. https://www.inc.com/suzanne-lucas/huffpost-editor-says-new-years-resolution-is-to-kill-all-men.html https://www.inc.com/suzanne-lucas/huffpost-editor-says-new-y...
- iamnothere 8y ago
  "Stochastic terrorism" is a rhetorical concept invented by would-be censors to justify their actions. Just because a term exists doesn't mean we should pay attention to it.

So-called hate speech doesn’t cause harm other than to feelings. It’s constitutionally protected in the US, and Facebook is going down the wrong path trying to eliminate it.

Godel_unicode 8y ago

It's constitutionally protected from the government infringing upon it. As Facebook is not the government, they are perfectly free to limit speech in any way they choose.

hndamien 8y ago
Governments should answer to people primarily. Facebook primarily answers to advertisers. This distinction is often forgotten.
YorkshireSeason 8y ago
The article can be read as stating that "[Facebook is an] Unseen Branch of Government"
- prolikewh0a 8y ago
  Social Media will be used to narrow the Overton Window and pull even more rights away and drive society into even further consumerist passivity. They're a private governmet, just like most large corporations now. https://press.princeton.edu/titles/10938.html https://press.princeton.edu/titles/10938.html
yepguy 8y ago
What hope does constitutional free speech have for the future if its citizenry doesn't hold the principle dear? The public must actually practice something that approximates the free speech protections they want from the government or else they will lose those protections.

bduerst 8y ago

And hate speech is illegal in some societies, which is just as irrelevant as the US First Amendment because Facebook isn't a government organization.

monochromatic 8y ago
Obviously it’s not directly relevant. Think of it as a citation to persuasive authority.

mango7283 8y ago

Yet even here on HN it is possible to get banned for what you type.

manicdee 8y ago

I can choose who to serve in my pub. If you start mouthing off at the other patrons, you will be asked to leave. That is not censorship or silencing, it’s simply advising you that my place is not the place for that kind of behaviour.

monochromatic 8y ago
I didn’t say that FB can’t do this. I said it shouldn’t.
jlawson 8y ago
If you owned every pub, street, square, coffee shop, theater, restaurant, and other social and public discussion space in the world, do you think it's be fine for you to enforce your arbitrary opinions on everyone in those spaces? What if it's just people discussing things you don't like amongst themselves, with willing speakers and willing listeners?
- SolaceQuantum 8y ago
  Facebook does not own every public space. Facebook is not, itself, a public space. If one had to guess at it, I would describe it as perhaps a publically-accessible but privately owned space. Even if one decided to host something that would be allowed in public streets (for example a protest rally) the landowner of the space can still kick you out at any time from their property. On the internet, if one wants to express hate speech, there are still websites to do so that may not be Facebook.
  - jlawson 8y ago
    So to you, there is no level of dominance of channels of communication where a corporation takes on some of the responsibility of managing a public space? If they owned everything minus one, you're 100% okay with them censoring anyone for any reason and you think they should face zero criticism of that whatsoever. Because they own it, they can do what they want with it, and property rights are absolute. Just trying to follow your logic (and highlight its incoherence). As for other places to express speech you label "hate speech" - not really. Domain registrars, hosting providers, and payment processors will shut you down. See what happened to SubscribeStar recently. There actually is nowhere to go if the consortium of megacorporations decides they don't like you. Cyberpunk was supposed to be a dystopia but you seem to desperately want to bring it about.

azinman2 8y ago

I can’t tell if you’re trolling or not. I hope so, otherwise I’m very worried for your lack of understanding history and how the world works.

monochromatic 8y ago
How was I trolling? (Note that I didn’t say Facebook couldn’t regulate speech—just that it shouldn’t.)
- aplummer 8y ago
  It’s not constitutionally protected in basically any other western country for example, what is so bad about the way those countries work? Is the USA an improved society because of this?
  - int_19h 8y ago
    > It’s not constitutionally protected in basically any other western country for example, what is so bad about the way those countries work To give just one example, in France, it is currently illegal to wear a t-shirt that says "boycott Israel". https://forward.com/news/breaking-news/323207/france-court-upholds-bds-is-discrimination-ruling/ https://forward.com/news/breaking-news/323207/france-court-u... So yes, USA is an improved society in that regard because of its strong freedom of speech protections. Hopefully we can keep them.
    - aplummer 8y ago
      I’m surprised political speech is not protected specifically as it is in the UK and Australia in France for example, but I still don’t agree the trade off for Nazis is worth it.
      - int_19h 8y ago
        > I’m surprised political speech is not protected specifically as it is in the UK and Australia in France for example It is protected. It's just that hate speech is an explicit exception from that rule (which is the whole point of that designation). Most of hate speech is political in some way. So it all boils down to who gets to define what is "hate speech", exactly. > I still don’t agree the trade off for Nazis is worth it. What trade-off? Neo-Nazis flourish in the very same countries that have extensive censorship of their ideologies and speech. Look at Germany with their "streitbare Demokratie" for an example - they don't just censor speech, they outright ban parties solely on the basis of their platforms. And for those efforts, they get yearly neo-Nazi marches that are several times bigger than the one-off we've seen in Charlottesville, and AfD is now the second most popular party. On the other hand, there's this trade-off: https://theintercept.com/2017/08/29/in-europe-hate-speech-laws-are-often-used-to-suppress-and-punish-left-wing-viewpoints/ https://theintercept.com/2017/08/29/in-europe-hate-speech-la...

Animats 8y ago

Yes. Here, Facebook is making a good-faith effort to censor, we can see how difficult a time they are having writing rules for it, and Facebook is being criticized for it. There is no good way to do prior restraint. Read Justice Brandeis' concurring decision in Whitney vs. California.[1] He wrote the classic decision on this subject, and I can't improve on that. "Those who won our independence believed that the final end of the State was to make men free to develop their faculties, and that, in its government, the deliberative forces should prevail over the arbitrary. They valued liberty both as an end, and as a means. They believed liberty to be the secret of happiness, and courage to be the secret of liberty. They believed that freedom to think as you will and to speak as you think are means indispensable to the discovery and spread of political truth; that, without free speech and assembly, discussion would be futile; that, with them, discussion affords ordinarily adequate protection against the dissemination of noxious doctrine; that the greatest menace to freedom is an inert people; that public discussion is a political duty, and that this should be a fundamental principle of the American government. They recognized the risks to which all human institutions are subject. But they knew that order cannot be secured merely through fear of punishment for its infraction; that it is hazardous to discourage thought, hope and imagination; that fear breeds repression; that repression breeds hate; that hate menaces stable government; that the path of safety lies in the opportunity to discuss freely supposed grievances and proposed remedies, and that the fitting remedy for evil counsels is good ones. Believing in the power of reason as applied through public discussion, they eschewed silence coerced by law -- the argument of force in its worst form. Recognizing the occasional tyrannies of governing majorities, they amended the Constitution so that free speech and assembly should be guaranteed." "Fear of serious injury cannot alone justify suppression of free speech and assembly. Men feared witches and burnt women. It is the function of speech to free men from the bondage of irrational fears. To justify suppression of free speech, there must be reasonable ground to fear that serious evil will result if free speech is practiced. There must be reasonable ground to believe that the danger apprehended is imminent. There must be reasonable ground to believe that the evil to be prevented is a serious one. Every denunciation of existing law tends in some measure to increase the probability that there will be violation of it. Condonation of a breach enhances the probability. Expressions of approval add to the probability. Propagation of the criminal state of mind by teaching syndicalism increases it. Advocacy of law-breaking heightens it still further. But even advocacy of violation, however reprehensible morally, is not a justification for denying free speech where the advocacy falls short of incitement and there is nothing to indicate that the advocacy would be immediately acted on. The wide difference between advocacy and incitement, between preparation and attempt, between assembling and conspiracy, must be borne in mind. In order to support a finding of clear and present danger, it must be shown either that immediate serious violence was to be expected or was advocated, or that the past conduct furnished reason to believe that such advocacy was then contemplated." "Those who won our independence by revolution were not cowards. They did not fear political change. They did not exalt order at the cost of liberty. To courageous, self-reliant men, with confidence in the power of free and fearless reasoning applied through the processes of popular government, no danger flowing from speech can be deemed clear and present unless the incidence of the evil apprehended is so imminent that it may befall before there is opportunity for full discussion. If there be time to expose through discussion the falsehood and fallacies, to avert the evil by the processes of education, the remedy to be applied is more speech, not enforced silence. Only an emergency can justify repression. Such must be the rule if authority is to be reconciled with freedom. [n4] Such, in my opinion, is the command of the Constitution. It is therefore always open to Americans to challenge a law abridging free speech and assembly by showing that there was no emergency justifying it." "Moreover, even imminent danger cannot justify resort to prohibition of these functions essential to effective democracy unless the evil apprehended is relatively serious. Prohibition of free speech and assembly is a measure so stringent that it would be inappropriate as the means for averting a relatively trivial harm to society. A police measure may be unconstitutional merely because the remedy, although effective as means of protection, is unduly harsh or oppressive. Thus, a State might, in the exercise of its police power, make any trespass upon the land of another a crime, regardless of the results or of the intent or purpose of the trespasser. It might, also, punish an attempt, a conspiracy, or an incitement to commit the trespass. But it is hardly conceivable that this Court would hold constitutional a statute which punished as a felony the mere voluntary assembly with a society formed to teach that pedestrians had the moral right to cross unenclosed, unposted, wastelands and to advocate their doing so, even if there was imminent danger that advocacy would lead to a trespass. The fact that speech is likely to result in some violence or in destruction of property is not enough to justify its suppression. There must be the probability of serious injury to the State. Among free men, the deterrents ordinarily to be applied to prevent crime are education and punishment for violations of the law, not abridgment of the rights of free speech and assembly." Note the standard Brandeis laid down: "In order to support a finding of clear and present danger, it must be shown either that immediate serious violence was to be expected or was advocated, or that the past conduct furnished reason to believe that such advocacy was then contemplated." "Immediate serious violence". That's the US standard for prior restraint. That's what Facebook, as a US company, should be using. [1] https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/274/357#writing-USSC_CR_0274_0357_ZC https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/274/357#writin...

wnmurphy 8y ago

You've clearly never heard of "stochastic terrorism". Words have consequences, and hate speech can have serious consequences. Just because something is included under blanket protections doesn't mean it's harmless to society.

rockerbalboa 8y ago
Yep, I have. https://www.inc.com/suzanne-lucas/huffpost-editor-says-new-years-resolution-is-to-kill-all-men.html https://www.inc.com/suzanne-lucas/huffpost-editor-says-new-y...
iamnothere 8y ago
"Stochastic terrorism" is a rhetorical concept invented by would-be censors to justify their actions. Just because a term exists doesn't mean we should pay attention to it.