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Americans are unable to comprehend it in the same way that the civilised world cannot comprehend enslaving another. Just as enslaving others is wrong, limiting

by huntie 8y ago

Americans are unable to comprehend it in the same way that the civilised world cannot comprehend enslaving another. Just as enslaving others is wrong, limiting free speech is wrong, and inherently contradictory. Limited speech is not free. It is time for the rest of the world to understand this, and the US could use a refresher as well.

doesnt_know 8y ago
Pretty disturbing you compare disallowing hate speech to enslaving someone. Also pretty ironic considering > the incarceration rate of the United States of America was the highest in the world, at 716 per 100,000 of the national population. While the United States represents about 4.4 percent of the world's population, it houses around 22 percent of the world's prisoners
- ekianjo 8y ago
  Note that in the US the prison population has exploded since the mental institutions were closed (i.e. there was a transfer of people with mental problems to prisons) which explains also why you have this increased percentage compared to other countries.
- huntie 8y ago
  First, I agree that the US has an incarceration problem. We're certainly not perfect, and I think much of the problem is due to the US's drug problem. Regardless, comparing incarceration to slavery is disingenuous as slavery requires no wrongdoing whereas incarceration should require wrongdoing. As for my comparison of disallowing hate speech to slavery, it is a very valid comparison. The two are morally reprehensible for similar reasons; one is slavery of the body, the other is slavery of the mind. History has shown time and again that what is en vogue today may be hate speech tomorrow.
  - rbg246 8y ago
    I don't see any problem with a government who is freely elected enacting laws that disallow hate speech. To assist with balancing these rights and restrictions there is an independent judiciary and court system that moderates these laws and works out whether they have gone too far.
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
    - huntie 8y ago
      "I don't see any problem with a government who is freely elected enacting laws that allow slavery." I cannot help but read your comment like this. Just because a government is freely elected, it does not make their actions just. To use a very tired example, Hitler rose to power through the actions of a freely elected government. In an ideal world the judiciary would moderate improper laws, but we live in an imperfect world and the US has many examples where our judiciary has failed in this regard.
    - int_19h 8y ago
      So long as you can ensure that discussing what is and isn't hate speech is never classified as hate speech itself.
  - marcus_holmes 8y ago
    what about "collective" cultures that don't prize individualism? If you are discouraged from saying something because it will cause social disharmony within your community, is that as morally wrong as slavery? I think not. I think capturing someone from their home, their country, their loved ones, transporting them across an ocean, beating them, making them work for the rest of their lives without pay, while starving them, raping them, and imprisoning them, is a long, long, long way more morally wrong than not letting idiots spout whatever crappy opinion happens to wander across what passes for their mind, regardless of what damage it causes.
    - huntie 8y ago
      "I think capturing..." This is a very American-centric view of slavery. Most cultures have participated in slavery at some point in history without the extraneous parts. Even if you treat your slave as family, the slavery is still immoral. Similarly, your views on free speech are very narrow-minded. Many people have been murdered by oppressive governments for speaking out against injustice. Were they "idiots spout[ing] whatever crappy opinion happens to wander across what passes for their mind"? If you are discouraged from saying something for _any_ reason, this is slavery of the mind. As for collective cultures, I don't think I know enough to effectively comment. I will note that many cultures that were okay at one time are now viewed with disgust as primitive, including your depiction of slavery in the Americas.
    - Nasrudith 8y ago
      To be frank 'collective' cultures seems to be a cop-out trope to excuse authoritarianism as 'just part of their culture' mixed with exoticism. It would be like excusing warlords as 'just a part of the culture' when everyone who isn't a part of his army wants him dead but is too afraid to take action and is essentially complicity in manufactured consent. A true collective culture would have no need for laws as cudgels for such matters because doing something 'selfish' would already make them an outcast surely as becoming an outspoken NAMBLA supporter.
      - seventhtiger 8y ago
        Isn't the logical conclusion to your argument anarchy? Isn't democracy just a populist brand of authoritarianism? The utility of all laws and enforcement in general can't be used to argue against a specific law.
dangerbird2 8y ago
> limiting free speech is wrong Enabling the spread of terrorist propaganda, like the blocked websites have been doing by hosting the Christchurch shooting video. You'd better believe if websites like Twitter and Youtube didn't self-censor ISIS propaganda like they did in 2014, many countries would be having their ISPs block those sites.
- huntie 8y ago
  Twitter's censorship was wrong, and those countries and ISPs censorship would have been wrong as well. Free speech is a human right and censorship is immoral.
  - amanzi 8y ago
    Twitter (and Facebook and any other online site) has Terms of Use policies that all customers must abide by if you want to use their platform. If you don't follow their rules, they can remove your content or your account. That is their right since it's their platform and you agreed to their rules when you signed up. If you don't like their policies you have the freedom to not use their platforms.
    - huntie 8y ago
      This has nothing to do with what I said. When I said it was wrong, I meant in a moral sense. Freedom of speech is a human right, which is ensured in the United States by the first ammendment of the constitution. Twitter is morally culpable for its censorship.
- thaumasiotes 8y ago
  > if websites like Twitter and Youtube didn't self-censor ISIS propaganda like they did in 2014 People posted ISIS beheading videos to YouTube and caused a policy crisis (within YouTube). YouTube responded by deciding that the beheading videos should stay up because they were newsworthy. As shocking as one of those videos is, it notionally shows why ISIS is bad. Or at least, that's what they said. YouTube simultaneously took down murder videos from South American gangs, on the theory that the gangs uploaded those videos themselves and whatever they wanted, YouTube wanted the opposite. I can't reconcile the two policies. The video shows what it shows. ISIS is, presumably, proud to have its propaganda videos displayed to the world, even if the uploader's accompanying commentary is "how horrible". And by the same token, when a gang uploads one of their own propaganda videos, that video illustrates how horrible the gang is in exactly the same way that ISIS's videos illustrate how horrible ISIS is. They are equally newsworthy. But policy was that uploads of ISIS propaganda videos for the purpose of criticizing ISIS were good, and uploads of gang propaganda videos for the purpose of scaring the local citizenry were bad. The fact that ISIS's local populace might be scared or attracted by propaganda videos, or that people outside of South America might be repulsed by publicly-available gang murder videos, apparently doesn't enter into it -- it's all about whether the uploader is pure of heart.
NeedMoreTea 8y ago
Not even the USA permits unlimited free speech. Memorably the US once limited speech against speaking out against conscription - under the 1918 sedition act - which led to the now famous free speech quote of "calling fire in a crowded theatre". The US still has a crime of, and recent prosecutions for sedition! A crime abolished as a relic in some other places. Pot, kettle, black? :)
- huntie 8y ago
  You need to reread what I wrote. I very explicity acknowledged that the US has problems with freedom of speech. Just the other day an executive order was signed in an attempt to restore free speech at public universities. The US constitution is very clear in its wording on free speech: "Congress shall make no law [...] abridging the freedom of speech". It is unfortunate that our judiciary has chosen to turn a blind eye to this and many other affronts to the rights of American citizens.
  - cam_l 8y ago
    I also am unequivocal about the fundamental human right of free speech, I also don't think it should be limited to US citizens. But I do accept that the effects of speech need necessarily be taken into account. If an immigrant overstaying their Visa publicly declares their status to an immigration agent, they can get deported. Did this violate their right to free speech? If a person's public speech is so vile that everyone agrees to not listen to them, does this violate their right? What we are actually talking about in this case, is morally (because of course, we have no rights to free speech in Australia) what are the acceptable restrictions that should be placed on people or businesses, to restrict others rights to speech? And is the restricting of the right to silence others (say on your platform), in itself not a kind of restriction of right to your own speech? This is much, much more difficult to answer consistently.
    - huntie 8y ago
      For your second example, I don't think that violates freedom of speech. Freedom of speech is the freedom to voice an opinion without fear of retaliation. Forcing others to listen to your speech seems tantamount to slavery. I think that your first example is also not a violation, as it is not an opinion. I think that this example reveals a more potent problem: what do we classify as opinion? As to that, I have no answer; I am no philosopher. As for the morality of restricting others' right to free speech, it is definitely a difficult problem. Morally I think that you have no right to silence others because you disagree with their opinion. There is some nuance here; if HN deletes a post advertising viagra I don't think this is silencing someone. Similarly, deleting a post containing the results of a football game to a programming forum is also not silencing someone. There is an aspect of relevancy at play. If you choose to operate a general purpose forum, morally you are pretty limited in what it is acceptable to silence. These are just my off-the-cuff thoughts. I might be missing something obvious here; it seems like a confounding problem.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

by huntie 8y ago

doesnt_know 8y ago

Pretty disturbing you compare disallowing hate speech to enslaving someone. Also pretty ironic considering > the incarceration rate of the United States of America was the highest in the world, at 716 per 100,000 of the national population. While the United States represents about 4.4 percent of the world's population, it houses around 22 percent of the world's prisoners

ekianjo 8y ago
Note that in the US the prison population has exploded since the mental institutions were closed (i.e. there was a transfer of people with mental problems to prisons) which explains also why you have this increased percentage compared to other countries.
huntie 8y ago
First, I agree that the US has an incarceration problem. We're certainly not perfect, and I think much of the problem is due to the US's drug problem. Regardless, comparing incarceration to slavery is disingenuous as slavery requires no wrongdoing whereas incarceration should require wrongdoing. As for my comparison of disallowing hate speech to slavery, it is a very valid comparison. The two are morally reprehensible for similar reasons; one is slavery of the body, the other is slavery of the mind. History has shown time and again that what is en vogue today may be hate speech tomorrow.
- rbg246 8y ago
  I don't see any problem with a government who is freely elected enacting laws that disallow hate speech. To assist with balancing these rights and restrictions there is an independent judiciary and court system that moderates these laws and works out whether they have gone too far.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - huntie 8y ago
    "I don't see any problem with a government who is freely elected enacting laws that allow slavery." I cannot help but read your comment like this. Just because a government is freely elected, it does not make their actions just. To use a very tired example, Hitler rose to power through the actions of a freely elected government. In an ideal world the judiciary would moderate improper laws, but we live in an imperfect world and the US has many examples where our judiciary has failed in this regard.
  - int_19h 8y ago
    So long as you can ensure that discussing what is and isn't hate speech is never classified as hate speech itself.
- marcus_holmes 8y ago
  what about "collective" cultures that don't prize individualism? If you are discouraged from saying something because it will cause social disharmony within your community, is that as morally wrong as slavery? I think not. I think capturing someone from their home, their country, their loved ones, transporting them across an ocean, beating them, making them work for the rest of their lives without pay, while starving them, raping them, and imprisoning them, is a long, long, long way more morally wrong than not letting idiots spout whatever crappy opinion happens to wander across what passes for their mind, regardless of what damage it causes.
  - huntie 8y ago
    "I think capturing..." This is a very American-centric view of slavery. Most cultures have participated in slavery at some point in history without the extraneous parts. Even if you treat your slave as family, the slavery is still immoral. Similarly, your views on free speech are very narrow-minded. Many people have been murdered by oppressive governments for speaking out against injustice. Were they "idiots spout[ing] whatever crappy opinion happens to wander across what passes for their mind"? If you are discouraged from saying something for _any_ reason, this is slavery of the mind. As for collective cultures, I don't think I know enough to effectively comment. I will note that many cultures that were okay at one time are now viewed with disgust as primitive, including your depiction of slavery in the Americas.
  - Nasrudith 8y ago
    To be frank 'collective' cultures seems to be a cop-out trope to excuse authoritarianism as 'just part of their culture' mixed with exoticism. It would be like excusing warlords as 'just a part of the culture' when everyone who isn't a part of his army wants him dead but is too afraid to take action and is essentially complicity in manufactured consent. A true collective culture would have no need for laws as cudgels for such matters because doing something 'selfish' would already make them an outcast surely as becoming an outspoken NAMBLA supporter.
    - seventhtiger 8y ago
      Isn't the logical conclusion to your argument anarchy? Isn't democracy just a populist brand of authoritarianism? The utility of all laws and enforcement in general can't be used to argue against a specific law.

dangerbird2 8y ago

> limiting free speech is wrong Enabling the spread of terrorist propaganda, like the blocked websites have been doing by hosting the Christchurch shooting video. You'd better believe if websites like Twitter and Youtube didn't self-censor ISIS propaganda like they did in 2014, many countries would be having their ISPs block those sites.

huntie 8y ago
Twitter's censorship was wrong, and those countries and ISPs censorship would have been wrong as well. Free speech is a human right and censorship is immoral.
- amanzi 8y ago
  Twitter (and Facebook and any other online site) has Terms of Use policies that all customers must abide by if you want to use their platform. If you don't follow their rules, they can remove your content or your account. That is their right since it's their platform and you agreed to their rules when you signed up. If you don't like their policies you have the freedom to not use their platforms.
  - huntie 8y ago
    This has nothing to do with what I said. When I said it was wrong, I meant in a moral sense. Freedom of speech is a human right, which is ensured in the United States by the first ammendment of the constitution. Twitter is morally culpable for its censorship.
thaumasiotes 8y ago
> if websites like Twitter and Youtube didn't self-censor ISIS propaganda like they did in 2014 People posted ISIS beheading videos to YouTube and caused a policy crisis (within YouTube). YouTube responded by deciding that the beheading videos should stay up because they were newsworthy. As shocking as one of those videos is, it notionally shows why ISIS is bad. Or at least, that's what they said. YouTube simultaneously took down murder videos from South American gangs, on the theory that the gangs uploaded those videos themselves and whatever they wanted, YouTube wanted the opposite. I can't reconcile the two policies. The video shows what it shows. ISIS is, presumably, proud to have its propaganda videos displayed to the world, even if the uploader's accompanying commentary is "how horrible". And by the same token, when a gang uploads one of their own propaganda videos, that video illustrates how horrible the gang is in exactly the same way that ISIS's videos illustrate how horrible ISIS is. They are equally newsworthy. But policy was that uploads of ISIS propaganda videos for the purpose of criticizing ISIS were good, and uploads of gang propaganda videos for the purpose of scaring the local citizenry were bad. The fact that ISIS's local populace might be scared or attracted by propaganda videos, or that people outside of South America might be repulsed by publicly-available gang murder videos, apparently doesn't enter into it -- it's all about whether the uploader is pure of heart.

NeedMoreTea 8y ago

Not even the USA permits unlimited free speech. Memorably the US once limited speech against speaking out against conscription - under the 1918 sedition act - which led to the now famous free speech quote of "calling fire in a crowded theatre". The US still has a crime of, and recent prosecutions for sedition! A crime abolished as a relic in some other places. Pot, kettle, black? :)

huntie 8y ago
You need to reread what I wrote. I very explicity acknowledged that the US has problems with freedom of speech. Just the other day an executive order was signed in an attempt to restore free speech at public universities. The US constitution is very clear in its wording on free speech: "Congress shall make no law [...] abridging the freedom of speech". It is unfortunate that our judiciary has chosen to turn a blind eye to this and many other affronts to the rights of American citizens.
- cam_l 8y ago
  I also am unequivocal about the fundamental human right of free speech, I also don't think it should be limited to US citizens. But I do accept that the effects of speech need necessarily be taken into account. If an immigrant overstaying their Visa publicly declares their status to an immigration agent, they can get deported. Did this violate their right to free speech? If a person's public speech is so vile that everyone agrees to not listen to them, does this violate their right? What we are actually talking about in this case, is morally (because of course, we have no rights to free speech in Australia) what are the acceptable restrictions that should be placed on people or businesses, to restrict others rights to speech? And is the restricting of the right to silence others (say on your platform), in itself not a kind of restriction of right to your own speech? This is much, much more difficult to answer consistently.
  - huntie 8y ago
    For your second example, I don't think that violates freedom of speech. Freedom of speech is the freedom to voice an opinion without fear of retaliation. Forcing others to listen to your speech seems tantamount to slavery. I think that your first example is also not a violation, as it is not an opinion. I think that this example reveals a more potent problem: what do we classify as opinion? As to that, I have no answer; I am no philosopher. As for the morality of restricting others' right to free speech, it is definitely a difficult problem. Morally I think that you have no right to silence others because you disagree with their opinion. There is some nuance here; if HN deletes a post advertising viagra I don't think this is silencing someone. Similarly, deleting a post containing the results of a football game to a programming forum is also not silencing someone. There is an aspect of relevancy at play. If you choose to operate a general purpose forum, morally you are pretty limited in what it is acceptable to silence. These are just my off-the-cuff thoughts. I might be missing something obvious here; it seems like a confounding problem.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]