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This article focuses on government gags on free speech, which is a real problem globally, but here in the United States I see free speech coming under attack fr

This article focuses on government gags on free speech, which is a real problem globally, but here in the United States I see free speech coming under attack from the progressive left constituency, rather than the government. To me it appears that the far left has abandoned the classical definitions of the word 'liberal' for populism and extremism. This seems to have been amplified in the last few years, since Trump's election, and you see it in things like the social justice warrior meme mocking 'free speech' with the purposely misspelling 'freeze peach'. Leaving aside culture wars waged by individuals, I see institutional tightening on free speech all over America. I see it in big tech companies, where only a progressive monoculture exists with no psychological safety for other viewpoints. I see it in censorship applied by defacto digital public squares like YouTube. I see it in the left's rampant use of deplatforming to silence opposing views. Increasingly, I also see it in universities (see this incident at the University of Washington today https://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2019/10/the-university-of-washington-should-not.html https://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2019/10/the-university-of-was...). I don't think it matters greatly whether it is the government or others. Free speech is a fundamental good that must be protected. I hope a greater focus is brought on these other means via which it has come under attack.

ebg13 7y ago
> deplatforming to silence opposing views I can't name any deplatformed views that aren't hate speech. If you can, I'd like to hear about them to broaden my views. > Free speech is a fundamental good that must be protected The freedom of speech and association comes with a corollary: the freedom to dissociate and shun. So welcome to the consequences of being on the other side of progress, I suppose? This is what happens. > progressive left Do you mean social democratic left?
- busymom0 7y ago
  Many people who have criticized Greta Thunberg have been banned.
  - ebg13 7y ago
    Who got banned from where for doing that?
- meruru 7y ago
  Did you miss all the Stallman threads we just had? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21120806 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21120806 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21103133 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21103133 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21088690 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21088690 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20990583 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20990583
  - duxup 7y ago
    Are MIT's or FSF's decisions "deplatforming"?
    - meruru 7y ago
      Maybe not technically, but that's irrelevant. It's part of the phenomenon being discussed.
      - duxup 7y ago
        I thought deplatforming was the phenomenon.
        meruru 7y ago
        Political groups forcibly silencing opposing views is.
        duxup 7y ago
        "Political groups forcibly silencing opposing views is." That seems like a very vague concept. I'm not sure what couldn't be placed under that umbrella.
    - colordrops 7y ago
      He was more "canceled" than "deplatformed". They call it "cancel culture" now.
  - 7y ago
- brighton36 7y ago
  Who decides what's hate speech? Aren't white nationalists necessarily guilty of too much white people love?
- orangecat 7y ago
  I can't name any deplatformed views that aren't hate speech. If you can, I'd like to hear about them to broaden my views. James Damore. And if you believe what he said really was hate speech, that just illustrates the problem.
  - Craighead 7y ago
    "You all are inferior because of your gender" That's the definition of creating a vicious and predatory workplace. Hence, fired. Not to mention every source he quoted came out saying that the information was misused.
    - phasnox 7y ago
      He never said that. Different != Inferior
    - philwelch 7y ago
      That’s not what he said. But really, this only highlights the real problem: if you censor someone, you can accuse them of having said anything because, by virtue of having censored the person, there’s no way for anyone to know better. Obviously many of us actually can still read Damore’s writeup, but that’s largely because the censorship isn’t actually effective yet. I’m just impressed that still doesn’t stop the would-be censors from lying about the stuff they’re trying to censor!
  - guelo 7y ago
    You heard his speech, millions heard his speech. In what way was he censored?
    - mdorazio 7y ago
      1) There was no speech. There was a well-reasoned essay worth reading even if you disagree with it. 2) Virtually no one actually read his essay in its entirety, including the media figures and bloggers who commented on it incessantly. His actual message and claims were completely ignored or outright twisted to fit a specific narrative. The fact that you had to go all the way to places like the Joe Rogan podcast to listen to him actually explain his thoughts without being editorialized was insane. 3) He lost his job as a direct result.
- bilbo0s 7y ago
  You're both right. Freedom of speech is important. And Freedom of Association is important. Everyone has a right to say what they please. And everyone has a right to associate with whoever they please. If you don't like what someone says, well, sorry. I don't know what to tell you? Go listen to someone else, I guess? But you can't make the guy you don't like stop talking. That's attacking his freedom. If people don't want to associate with you, well, sorry. I don't know what to tell you? Go find different friends, or don't be a douchebag, I guess? But you can't force people who don't like you to associate with you. That's attacking their freedom. Hate speech may be a thing, but it's entirely legitimate free expression. Other people don't lose their rights simply because you feel they should to accommodate your belief system. "Deplatforming", whatever that is, may be a thing, but it's entirely legitimate free expression. Other people don't lose their rights simply because you feel they should to accommodate your belief system.
  - phasnox 7y ago
    I completely agree. YouTube doesn't have to show content they don't like. But if they want to behave like a publisher, they need to be prepared to be legislated as a publisher.
    - guelo 7y ago
      What publisher legislation? Freedom of the press is in the same constitutional amendment as freedom of speech.
      - AmericanChopper 7y ago
        A free press is still accountable to the law. If the press slanders somebody, or publishes illegal content they are liable for it. That is, unless they publish it as user generated content, which was a legal loophole created in the mid 90s to protect websites from liability for user submitted comments. It used to be that if you did not moderate the comments, you were not liable for them (think net neutrality), as you were simply acting as a common carrier. Since that law was passed, you are now free to moderate and editorialize user generated content in any way you see fit, as well as enjoy complete immunity from all liability that would otherwise be associated with that (think the exact opposite of net neutrality).
- throwawaysea 7y ago
  If you follow my link to Professor Cliff Mass's blog post about censorship at the University of Washington, you would see a bit about when he used the phrase "pigs at a trough". This phrasing was - as ridiculous as it may sound - cast as a racist comment by activists, and used as a means of attack against him. Here's the relevant bits: > In that blog, I discussed the issue of politically well-connected groups securing funds at the public trough and used the century-old political metaphor of “pigs at a trough”, not in the text, but in a single picture (see below). > This metaphor is frequently used in the media and books, such as Arianna Huffington’s hard hitting book on political corruption in America, which described the greed of the politically connected (see below). > The activist students claimed that such a metaphor was racist because some members of the 1631 consortium were from minority groups. They ignored the fact that the 1631 coalition was overwhelmingly white and well-to-do. The fact I was expressing political opinions outside the UW did not seem important to them, nor did they care about the concept of freedom of speech. They wanted the department and college administration to do something about me and my blog. > Will the College of Environment Deans Accuse Arianna Huffington of Racism? Or Australian Adam Schwab? And shamefully and potentially illegally, the Atmospheric Sciences chair and COENV Deans, ignoring First Amendment protections and the essential principles of an academic institution, did exactly what the students wanted > Between the end of October and early November 2018, Department Chairman Dale Durran, COENV Associate Dean of Research Robert Wood, COENV Associate Dean of Administration Stephanie Harrington, and COENV Assistant Dean of Diversity Terryl Ross wrote a letter attacking my blog that was formally approved by Dean Lisa Graumlich. (all of this is documented in their internal emails). > Their letter, “Message on Departmental Civility”, was sent to MY ENTIRE DEPARTMENT (including staff, faculty, and students—over 120 people) on November 22, stating that my blog “included imagery and text that was racially insensitive and caused offense.” The letter accused me of racism through the statement “Racism is in direct contradiction to our shared values and has no place in our college” as well as suggesting that I harmed the community through my blog. > This letter was not only inappropriate and arguably unethical but a violation of University of Washington faculty code, including the protection of academic freedom. > UW administrators were sanctioning and shaming a faculty member inside the university for expressing political free speech outside of the UW: also an apparent violation of constitutionally protected freedom of speech at a public university. Importantly, freedom of speech is protected BOTH inside and outside a public university by the U.S. and Washington State constitutions. There are numerous examples to point at, but this is a very recent one showing how far the definition of 'hate speech' has been stretched. By making every issue political, and every issue one of oppression, the notion of intersectionality has been twisted to weaponize rhetoric and curtail free speech. I think that is very bad for healing divisiveness and operating a rational society.
- Consultant32452 7y ago
  It doesn't help the conversation to suggest that the speech that's being deplatformed is unpalatable. That's practically a tautology. You don't have to protect approved speech. I recommend this speech by Frederick Douglass against deplatforming. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_w2i5CnZ9Xo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_w2i5CnZ9Xo
- snagglegaggle 7y ago
  Hate speech is protected speech. The "fire in a theater" argument was forced as the justice was grabbing at straws in an attempt to protect the war effort. He later admitted it was a poor ruling. To understand why all speech is protected realize that the first amendment is partly to prevent arguments about which speech is permissible from occurring by allowing all of it. So... by saying "hate speech is not allowed" you are having the argument that was supposed to not be had.
  - ebg13 7y ago
    > Hate speech is protected speech. Protected against the government, but not protected against community ostracization.
    - snagglegaggle 7y ago
      Yes, I know, it's been brought up plenty. But keep in mind "hate speech is protected" is not popular in most legal circles (but is kind of accepted with most people I know, and has some major dissenting legal opinions in support of it).
arcticbull 7y ago
Free speech is completely unrelated to deplatforming, regardless whether you believe that’s happening or not. Only the government is required to permit free speech, Twitter isn’t, YouTube isn’t, and neither is Fox or Breitbart. Private companies do not have any responsibility to permit speech they disagree with. No “left winger” (America doesn’t have a left, it has a center right and a far right) has proposed amending the constitution to eliminate free speech. At best they're hoping to move the Overton window.
- toomuchtodo 7y ago
  Indeed, which is why Youtube is totally within their right to demonetize LGBTQ+ content (any content really, regardless of subject) if it's not acceptable to their advertisers. If you're comfortable with platforms deplatforming what you don't agree with, be prepared to become comfortable with them deplatforming whatever they want, whenever they want.
  - arcticbull 7y ago
    I am. I don’t go to breitbart because I don’t agree with them. If YouTube started doing things I didn’t agree with I’d mosey on too. That’s not entirely true because I still watch an awful lot of Fox but the spirit remains. They don’t tell me what to say and I don’t tell them what to say.
  - throwawaysea 7y ago
    Do you really think it is appropriate for Visa or Mastercard to decline to process payments for Wikileaks? Or for Youtube to demonetize Conservative voices? These platforms control way too much of today's commerce and speech to be treated as just private corporations exercising their rights. That is a disingenuous disregard for the principle of free speech, which is again, more fundamental than the notion of free speech enshrined in current American law.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
    - 7y ago
thereare5lights 7y ago
> I see free speech coming under attack from the progressive left constituency, rather than the government. Oh please. The right is just as guilty. The Dixie Chicks got canceled for the better part of the 2000s for daring to speak against the Iraq War and Bush. https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2019/09/04/university-of-alabama-dean-american-flag-and-police-represent-systemic-history-of-racism/ https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2019/09/04/university-of-... That got Dean Jamie Riley fired. Colin Kaepernick got canceled by the right. I'm sure there's numerous more examples to be found if we dug into it, but let's not pretend that these attacks on free speech are a purely left wing thing.
- throwawaysea 7y ago
  Yes, you're right this phenomenon isn't purely a left-wing one, and I think it is wrong when either side does it. I pointed at the left just because these days I see it most often done by the left, and in recent times, it is accomplished by going to service providers (like payment processors) and pressuring them to fire a client. For the record, I thought it was wrong for networks to drop the Dixie Chicks as they did.
  - shkkmo 7y ago
    Partisanship has been increasing in the US and I expect things to get much worse before they get better. If only our government wasn't designed in such as way as to make stoking that fire so such a successful strategy.
    - meruru 7y ago
      Not just the US. I think this is being driven by the social dynamics of the Internet. Things like filter bubbles and click-driven journalism. Social networks like Facebook and Twitter shape discussions in particular ways that are very different than offline.
antipropaganda 7y ago
The larger problem here is that many technology companies have become virtual monopolies. If you can be deplatformed from Youtube + Facebook + Twitter then you will not be heard at all. Afterward, your political opponents can go online on these platforms and call you a 'Nazi' a million times. At this point, what Joseph Goebbels said applies: 'If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it'[1]. This causes even more platforms to deplatform you and eventually, it becomes a cycle. The core of the problem is that these companies are too big, too influential. They must be broken up [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_lie https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_lie
- throwawaysea 7y ago
  Yes, totally agree. These big companies must be broken up, or treated with a much greater degree of regulation (effectively holding them to the standards that the government is held to, as sole provider of some functions).
- patientplatypus 7y ago
  The larger larger problem is that those giants are owned lock stock and two smoking barrels by advertisers. You can say anything you want on the internet so long as it doesn't lose Proctor & Gamble or Mars or Pepsi Co any money. Oh the land of the freeeeee.....
jakelazaroff 7y ago
You say you're worried about freedom of speech in big tech companies and de facto digital public squares, but what you seem to be getting at would actually curtail their freedom of speech. The government forcing private entities to disseminate speech they don't want to — that's where this leads, right? In reality, no one is a free speech absolutist. We just argue over where the lines should be drawn. Bans on child pornography and threats of violence are pretty uncontroversial abridgements of free speech. Banning harassment and hate speech seems to be a bit less popular. Which is fine, everyone has their own ideas about what's acceptable. But don't draw your line in the sand and then tell me that's what determines "free speech".
- meruru 7y ago
  >The government forcing private entities to disseminate speech they don't want to — that's where this leads, right? I don't think so. Is anyone proposing this as a solution? The parent certainly doesn't seem to be.
  - jakelazaroff 7y ago
    The parent, in a reply to a sibling comment to mine [1]: > Yes, totally agree. These big companies must be broken up, or treated with a much greater degree of regulation (effectively holding them to the standards that the government is held to, as sole provider of some functions). I am sympathetic to breaking up big companies (albeit because of a dislike of private consolidations of power, rather than a commitment to freedom of speech). But their alternative proposal is exactly the scenario to which I was referring. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21143819 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21143819
    - meruru 7y ago
      I somehow missed that. His proposal sounds much more narrow however, targeting only companies that have become a "sole provider of some functions". I do think breaking up the monopoly is a no-brainer in this scenario.
patientplatypus 7y ago
What about climate change? Should we continue to give a platform to climate change deniers?
- erik_seaberg 7y ago
  Keep countering with better arguments. They'll gain support if they can point at an actual conspiracy silencing them.
  - patientplatypus 7y ago
    And once all of the political capital and opportunity cost has gone into proving that science is true it will be too late to do anything to save us. Color me unconvinced.
  - krageon 7y ago
    You can't counter someone with arguments when they have lost touch with reality. It is a losing proposition no matter what, because you are just losing energy throwing arguments at a literal wall of ignorance. This sort of trolling (or god forbid actual ignorance) does not deserve a voice anywhere. There are plenty of people with disturbed thinking we don't spend time listening to and we do this because we already know it won't make a lick of difference: At the end of the day, they're still not capable of thinking coherent thoughts no matter how much you talk at them.
    - erik_seaberg 7y ago
      It's the audience you need to convince, not the other side. Banning them makes your position look weak.
      - krageon 7y ago
        The only people that the position would "look weak" to would be people who don't understand what it means when something is just a verifiable truth. I would posit you lose nothing by ignoring them.
atoav 7y ago
This is a consequence of the postmodernist post-truth fragmentation of the political discourse in which words and speech are exceedingly used like weapons. So I’d argue that there is a dialectic relationship between the speech sensitivity on the left and the post-truth-I-know-it-is-false-but-I-will-say-it-anyways-tactics of the right. And that isn’t the case because speech is a thing the left wants to take away from the rest of us ― no, speech itself has become the battlefield on which the decisions about the future are carried out. Both the left and the right have understood this. So I said the left and the right are in a dialectic relationship when it comes to speech. Here is what this means: As the discourse is getting more and more unhinged and boundaries we traditionally had are completely gone: things that were unspeakable a decade ago are now said in the news. So the left is in their own weird way trying to keep control about what should and shouldn’t be said. The right on the other hand tries to expand what can be said, because it gives them an advantage. They literally don’t care about the fallout their language has on society as long as it brings them political power. The raw discourse certainly helps to divide the public into binary camps and the hope on the right is that the speech-aware left can be beaten by a right that is not bound to any ethical consideration when it comes to their choice of words. In fact the reason why the language on the right is so unhinged is because they belive it gives them a tactical advantage and not because any of them believes in free speech per se. So the left tries to change speech in such a way, that the speaker should become aware of the many realities (race, class, gender, culture, ...) encoded in speech and avoid saying things that negatively impact others. The right literally tries to speak things into existence in a way that acts as a tribal identity in times where tribes cannot exist without friction. So where the left has accepted this post-tribal state of affairs and wants to respect as many realities as possible (and sometimes more) the right does the polar opposite and needs to keep as many realities as possible (and sometimes more) out of their speech in order to maintain the group. That beeing said they are both phenomena that are rooted in the structural changes our societies are going through as a consequence of the internet and the fall of the soviet union (which meant for the first time capitalism didn’t had a socialist counterpart and there was no need to look social anymore).
- arduanika 7y ago
  > In fact the reason why the language on the right is so unhinged is because they belive it gives them a tactical advantage and not because any of them believes in free speech per se. Mindreading. > They literally don’t care about the fallout their language has on society as long as it brings them political power. Mindreading. Possible projection too, but I don't want to engage in mindreading. > become aware of the many realities encoded in speech and avoid saying things that negatively impact others Get a time machine, tell that truck to James Madison. Tell it to John Stuart Mill. There is one proven way of raising consciousness and of expanding the possibilities of consciousness, and that's free speech. Every other mode of conceptualizing the kaleidoscope of realities leads to bad places. Every other mode other than free speech is a blasphemy against the Enlightenment. I will defend your right to blaspheme of course, but reserve my right to sneer at your "dialectic" and at your deeply broken toxic simile about how "words and speech are exceedingly used like weapons". s/like/in lieu/, and we should be damn grateful for it.
bontaq 7y ago
It's kind of interesting that this is the exact comment I expected to see. Obviously, the mockery of "free speech" as "freeze peach" is because the meaning behind that, for a lot of people complaining about it, is that they would like to say something hateful. It's so frequent that it's become a meme. It's unfortunate, and places that put an emphasis on free speech are shitholes like gab and voat. They would like whatever hate they're selling to have a bigger audience, and it's not really on corporations to provide that. I would say the term has been co-opted by the right in online spaces, which makes it hard to talk about. It's no longer classical "free speech," almost always you have ask, "what were you trying to say with that free speech?" Are they being banned for being anti-government? Anti-bank? Anti-military? Anti-religion? The pro- versions of those? Or is it maybe something else. Your vision of a "leftist" crack down, could be interpreted as the "right" getting more extreme and being banned.
- koonsolo 7y ago
  The "left" seem to be offended by facts too, which as a rational person, seems very strange to me. Like the guy who got fired from google by stating facts, etc. Make no mistake, both extreme left and right are totalitarian dictatorships. With the extreme left even more dangerous, as history clearly shows.
  - bontaq 7y ago
    That's nice, would you mind stating a fact the left is offended by?
    - koonsolo 7y ago
      All things related to the "gender equality paradox" seems to be a hard one to swallow for the left. This is also the one that got Google employee James Damore fired. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender-equality_paradox https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender-equality_paradox
      - bontaq 7y ago
deleted 7y ago
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tarsinge 7y ago
Isn’t there a confusion between free speech and social consequences of opinions? Protection from the second is not a right. Saying something hugely unpopular to a group, no matter the validity of the claim, will generate a strong response from that group. That one group is overly represented for example in Universities is a political problem, not a free speech problem. If you say something racist in the US, you just get a social (media) outcry. But in France for example, it’s also illegal, so you also literally get a fine.
krageon 7y ago
It is a sad day when you read a (presumed) US citizen advocating free speech and lamenting it's social decline and you must make the only assumption that makes sense: They are a closet racist. This is the only group of people you see consistently advocating this online and it always ends up with the kind of thinly veiled slurs we already start seeing in this post: "far left", talking about Trump, the works. As for your closing point: Free speech is great, but when it is in support of the president the US has now and his fascist cronies I think we could stand to have a little less. The Germans figured this out many years ago because the US (among others) made them mend their ways, so there is boundless irony to be found in the kind of unsavoury thinking that allows it to spread again.
wind0w 7y ago
I'm extremely wary of any claim that there is a "progressive monoculture" on tech platforms. The only "free speech" that seems to be suppressed is straight up hate speech -- open white supremacy, homophobia, misogyny, etc. The kind of speech that everyone should find contemptible regardless of political orientation. Where are the cries of "free speech" from conservatives when for example Google punishes its employees for union organizing?

ebg13 7y ago

> deplatforming to silence opposing views I can't name any deplatformed views that aren't hate speech. If you can, I'd like to hear about them to broaden my views. > Free speech is a fundamental good that must be protected The freedom of speech and association comes with a corollary: the freedom to dissociate and shun. So welcome to the consequences of being on the other side of progress, I suppose? This is what happens. > progressive left Do you mean social democratic left?

busymom0 7y ago
Many people who have criticized Greta Thunberg have been banned.
- ebg13 7y ago
  Who got banned from where for doing that?
meruru 7y ago
Did you miss all the Stallman threads we just had? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21120806 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21120806 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21103133 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21103133 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21088690 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21088690 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20990583 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20990583
- duxup 7y ago
  Are MIT's or FSF's decisions "deplatforming"?
  - meruru 7y ago
    Maybe not technically, but that's irrelevant. It's part of the phenomenon being discussed.
    - duxup 7y ago
      I thought deplatforming was the phenomenon.
      - meruru 7y ago
        Political groups forcibly silencing opposing views is.
        duxup 7y ago
        "Political groups forcibly silencing opposing views is." That seems like a very vague concept. I'm not sure what couldn't be placed under that umbrella.
  - colordrops 7y ago
    He was more "canceled" than "deplatformed". They call it "cancel culture" now.
- 7y ago
brighton36 7y ago
Who decides what's hate speech? Aren't white nationalists necessarily guilty of too much white people love?
orangecat 7y ago
I can't name any deplatformed views that aren't hate speech. If you can, I'd like to hear about them to broaden my views. James Damore. And if you believe what he said really was hate speech, that just illustrates the problem.
- Craighead 7y ago
  "You all are inferior because of your gender" That's the definition of creating a vicious and predatory workplace. Hence, fired. Not to mention every source he quoted came out saying that the information was misused.
  - phasnox 7y ago
    He never said that. Different != Inferior
  - philwelch 7y ago
    That’s not what he said. But really, this only highlights the real problem: if you censor someone, you can accuse them of having said anything because, by virtue of having censored the person, there’s no way for anyone to know better. Obviously many of us actually can still read Damore’s writeup, but that’s largely because the censorship isn’t actually effective yet. I’m just impressed that still doesn’t stop the would-be censors from lying about the stuff they’re trying to censor!
- guelo 7y ago
  You heard his speech, millions heard his speech. In what way was he censored?
  - mdorazio 7y ago
    1) There was no speech. There was a well-reasoned essay worth reading even if you disagree with it. 2) Virtually no one actually read his essay in its entirety, including the media figures and bloggers who commented on it incessantly. His actual message and claims were completely ignored or outright twisted to fit a specific narrative. The fact that you had to go all the way to places like the Joe Rogan podcast to listen to him actually explain his thoughts without being editorialized was insane. 3) He lost his job as a direct result.
bilbo0s 7y ago
You're both right. Freedom of speech is important. And Freedom of Association is important. Everyone has a right to say what they please. And everyone has a right to associate with whoever they please. If you don't like what someone says, well, sorry. I don't know what to tell you? Go listen to someone else, I guess? But you can't make the guy you don't like stop talking. That's attacking his freedom. If people don't want to associate with you, well, sorry. I don't know what to tell you? Go find different friends, or don't be a douchebag, I guess? But you can't force people who don't like you to associate with you. That's attacking their freedom. Hate speech may be a thing, but it's entirely legitimate free expression. Other people don't lose their rights simply because you feel they should to accommodate your belief system. "Deplatforming", whatever that is, may be a thing, but it's entirely legitimate free expression. Other people don't lose their rights simply because you feel they should to accommodate your belief system.
- phasnox 7y ago
  I completely agree. YouTube doesn't have to show content they don't like. But if they want to behave like a publisher, they need to be prepared to be legislated as a publisher.
  - guelo 7y ago
    What publisher legislation? Freedom of the press is in the same constitutional amendment as freedom of speech.
    - AmericanChopper 7y ago
      A free press is still accountable to the law. If the press slanders somebody, or publishes illegal content they are liable for it. That is, unless they publish it as user generated content, which was a legal loophole created in the mid 90s to protect websites from liability for user submitted comments. It used to be that if you did not moderate the comments, you were not liable for them (think net neutrality), as you were simply acting as a common carrier. Since that law was passed, you are now free to moderate and editorialize user generated content in any way you see fit, as well as enjoy complete immunity from all liability that would otherwise be associated with that (think the exact opposite of net neutrality).
throwawaysea 7y ago
If you follow my link to Professor Cliff Mass's blog post about censorship at the University of Washington, you would see a bit about when he used the phrase "pigs at a trough". This phrasing was - as ridiculous as it may sound - cast as a racist comment by activists, and used as a means of attack against him. Here's the relevant bits: > In that blog, I discussed the issue of politically well-connected groups securing funds at the public trough and used the century-old political metaphor of “pigs at a trough”, not in the text, but in a single picture (see below). > This metaphor is frequently used in the media and books, such as Arianna Huffington’s hard hitting book on political corruption in America, which described the greed of the politically connected (see below). > The activist students claimed that such a metaphor was racist because some members of the 1631 consortium were from minority groups. They ignored the fact that the 1631 coalition was overwhelmingly white and well-to-do. The fact I was expressing political opinions outside the UW did not seem important to them, nor did they care about the concept of freedom of speech. They wanted the department and college administration to do something about me and my blog. > Will the College of Environment Deans Accuse Arianna Huffington of Racism? Or Australian Adam Schwab? And shamefully and potentially illegally, the Atmospheric Sciences chair and COENV Deans, ignoring First Amendment protections and the essential principles of an academic institution, did exactly what the students wanted > Between the end of October and early November 2018, Department Chairman Dale Durran, COENV Associate Dean of Research Robert Wood, COENV Associate Dean of Administration Stephanie Harrington, and COENV Assistant Dean of Diversity Terryl Ross wrote a letter attacking my blog that was formally approved by Dean Lisa Graumlich. (all of this is documented in their internal emails). > Their letter, “Message on Departmental Civility”, was sent to MY ENTIRE DEPARTMENT (including staff, faculty, and students—over 120 people) on November 22, stating that my blog “included imagery and text that was racially insensitive and caused offense.” The letter accused me of racism through the statement “Racism is in direct contradiction to our shared values and has no place in our college” as well as suggesting that I harmed the community through my blog. > This letter was not only inappropriate and arguably unethical but a violation of University of Washington faculty code, including the protection of academic freedom. > UW administrators were sanctioning and shaming a faculty member inside the university for expressing political free speech outside of the UW: also an apparent violation of constitutionally protected freedom of speech at a public university. Importantly, freedom of speech is protected BOTH inside and outside a public university by the U.S. and Washington State constitutions. There are numerous examples to point at, but this is a very recent one showing how far the definition of 'hate speech' has been stretched. By making every issue political, and every issue one of oppression, the notion of intersectionality has been twisted to weaponize rhetoric and curtail free speech. I think that is very bad for healing divisiveness and operating a rational society.
Consultant32452 7y ago
It doesn't help the conversation to suggest that the speech that's being deplatformed is unpalatable. That's practically a tautology. You don't have to protect approved speech. I recommend this speech by Frederick Douglass against deplatforming. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_w2i5CnZ9Xo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_w2i5CnZ9Xo
snagglegaggle 7y ago
Hate speech is protected speech. The "fire in a theater" argument was forced as the justice was grabbing at straws in an attempt to protect the war effort. He later admitted it was a poor ruling. To understand why all speech is protected realize that the first amendment is partly to prevent arguments about which speech is permissible from occurring by allowing all of it. So... by saying "hate speech is not allowed" you are having the argument that was supposed to not be had.
- ebg13 7y ago
  > Hate speech is protected speech. Protected against the government, but not protected against community ostracization.
  - snagglegaggle 7y ago
    Yes, I know, it's been brought up plenty. But keep in mind "hate speech is protected" is not popular in most legal circles (but is kind of accepted with most people I know, and has some major dissenting legal opinions in support of it).

arcticbull 7y ago

Free speech is completely unrelated to deplatforming, regardless whether you believe that’s happening or not. Only the government is required to permit free speech, Twitter isn’t, YouTube isn’t, and neither is Fox or Breitbart. Private companies do not have any responsibility to permit speech they disagree with. No “left winger” (America doesn’t have a left, it has a center right and a far right) has proposed amending the constitution to eliminate free speech. At best they're hoping to move the Overton window.

toomuchtodo 7y ago
Indeed, which is why Youtube is totally within their right to demonetize LGBTQ+ content (any content really, regardless of subject) if it's not acceptable to their advertisers. If you're comfortable with platforms deplatforming what you don't agree with, be prepared to become comfortable with them deplatforming whatever they want, whenever they want.
- arcticbull 7y ago
  I am. I don’t go to breitbart because I don’t agree with them. If YouTube started doing things I didn’t agree with I’d mosey on too. That’s not entirely true because I still watch an awful lot of Fox but the spirit remains. They don’t tell me what to say and I don’t tell them what to say.
- throwawaysea 7y ago
  Do you really think it is appropriate for Visa or Mastercard to decline to process payments for Wikileaks? Or for Youtube to demonetize Conservative voices? These platforms control way too much of today's commerce and speech to be treated as just private corporations exercising their rights. That is a disingenuous disregard for the principle of free speech, which is again, more fundamental than the notion of free speech enshrined in current American law.
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thereare5lights 7y ago

> I see free speech coming under attack from the progressive left constituency, rather than the government. Oh please. The right is just as guilty. The Dixie Chicks got canceled for the better part of the 2000s for daring to speak against the Iraq War and Bush. https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2019/09/04/university-of-alabama-dean-american-flag-and-police-represent-systemic-history-of-racism/ https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2019/09/04/university-of-... That got Dean Jamie Riley fired. Colin Kaepernick got canceled by the right. I'm sure there's numerous more examples to be found if we dug into it, but let's not pretend that these attacks on free speech are a purely left wing thing.

throwawaysea 7y ago
Yes, you're right this phenomenon isn't purely a left-wing one, and I think it is wrong when either side does it. I pointed at the left just because these days I see it most often done by the left, and in recent times, it is accomplished by going to service providers (like payment processors) and pressuring them to fire a client. For the record, I thought it was wrong for networks to drop the Dixie Chicks as they did.
- shkkmo 7y ago
  Partisanship has been increasing in the US and I expect things to get much worse before they get better. If only our government wasn't designed in such as way as to make stoking that fire so such a successful strategy.
  - meruru 7y ago
    Not just the US. I think this is being driven by the social dynamics of the Internet. Things like filter bubbles and click-driven journalism. Social networks like Facebook and Twitter shape discussions in particular ways that are very different than offline.

antipropaganda 7y ago

The larger problem here is that many technology companies have become virtual monopolies. If you can be deplatformed from Youtube + Facebook + Twitter then you will not be heard at all. Afterward, your political opponents can go online on these platforms and call you a 'Nazi' a million times. At this point, what Joseph Goebbels said applies: 'If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it'[1]. This causes even more platforms to deplatform you and eventually, it becomes a cycle. The core of the problem is that these companies are too big, too influential. They must be broken up [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_lie https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_lie

throwawaysea 7y ago
Yes, totally agree. These big companies must be broken up, or treated with a much greater degree of regulation (effectively holding them to the standards that the government is held to, as sole provider of some functions).
patientplatypus 7y ago
The larger larger problem is that those giants are owned lock stock and two smoking barrels by advertisers. You can say anything you want on the internet so long as it doesn't lose Proctor & Gamble or Mars or Pepsi Co any money. Oh the land of the freeeeee.....

jakelazaroff 7y ago

You say you're worried about freedom of speech in big tech companies and de facto digital public squares, but what you seem to be getting at would actually curtail their freedom of speech. The government forcing private entities to disseminate speech they don't want to — that's where this leads, right? In reality, no one is a free speech absolutist. We just argue over where the lines should be drawn. Bans on child pornography and threats of violence are pretty uncontroversial abridgements of free speech. Banning harassment and hate speech seems to be a bit less popular. Which is fine, everyone has their own ideas about what's acceptable. But don't draw your line in the sand and then tell me that's what determines "free speech".

meruru 7y ago
>The government forcing private entities to disseminate speech they don't want to — that's where this leads, right? I don't think so. Is anyone proposing this as a solution? The parent certainly doesn't seem to be.
- jakelazaroff 7y ago
  The parent, in a reply to a sibling comment to mine [1]: > Yes, totally agree. These big companies must be broken up, or treated with a much greater degree of regulation (effectively holding them to the standards that the government is held to, as sole provider of some functions). I am sympathetic to breaking up big companies (albeit because of a dislike of private consolidations of power, rather than a commitment to freedom of speech). But their alternative proposal is exactly the scenario to which I was referring. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21143819 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21143819
  - meruru 7y ago
    I somehow missed that. His proposal sounds much more narrow however, targeting only companies that have become a "sole provider of some functions". I do think breaking up the monopoly is a no-brainer in this scenario.

patientplatypus 7y ago

What about climate change? Should we continue to give a platform to climate change deniers?

erik_seaberg 7y ago
Keep countering with better arguments. They'll gain support if they can point at an actual conspiracy silencing them.
- patientplatypus 7y ago
  And once all of the political capital and opportunity cost has gone into proving that science is true it will be too late to do anything to save us. Color me unconvinced.
- krageon 7y ago
  You can't counter someone with arguments when they have lost touch with reality. It is a losing proposition no matter what, because you are just losing energy throwing arguments at a literal wall of ignorance. This sort of trolling (or god forbid actual ignorance) does not deserve a voice anywhere. There are plenty of people with disturbed thinking we don't spend time listening to and we do this because we already know it won't make a lick of difference: At the end of the day, they're still not capable of thinking coherent thoughts no matter how much you talk at them.
  - erik_seaberg 7y ago
    It's the audience you need to convince, not the other side. Banning them makes your position look weak.
    - krageon 7y ago
      The only people that the position would "look weak" to would be people who don't understand what it means when something is just a verifiable truth. I would posit you lose nothing by ignoring them.

atoav 7y ago

This is a consequence of the postmodernist post-truth fragmentation of the political discourse in which words and speech are exceedingly used like weapons. So I’d argue that there is a dialectic relationship between the speech sensitivity on the left and the post-truth-I-know-it-is-false-but-I-will-say-it-anyways-tactics of the right. And that isn’t the case because speech is a thing the left wants to take away from the rest of us ― no, speech itself has become the battlefield on which the decisions about the future are carried out. Both the left and the right have understood this. So I said the left and the right are in a dialectic relationship when it comes to speech. Here is what this means: As the discourse is getting more and more unhinged and boundaries we traditionally had are completely gone: things that were unspeakable a decade ago are now said in the news. So the left is in their own weird way trying to keep control about what should and shouldn’t be said. The right on the other hand tries to expand what can be said, because it gives them an advantage. They literally don’t care about the fallout their language has on society as long as it brings them political power. The raw discourse certainly helps to divide the public into binary camps and the hope on the right is that the speech-aware left can be beaten by a right that is not bound to any ethical consideration when it comes to their choice of words. In fact the reason why the language on the right is so unhinged is because they belive it gives them a tactical advantage and not because any of them believes in free speech per se. So the left tries to change speech in such a way, that the speaker should become aware of the many realities (race, class, gender, culture, ...) encoded in speech and avoid saying things that negatively impact others. The right literally tries to speak things into existence in a way that acts as a tribal identity in times where tribes cannot exist without friction. So where the left has accepted this post-tribal state of affairs and wants to respect as many realities as possible (and sometimes more) the right does the polar opposite and needs to keep as many realities as possible (and sometimes more) out of their speech in order to maintain the group. That beeing said they are both phenomena that are rooted in the structural changes our societies are going through as a consequence of the internet and the fall of the soviet union (which meant for the first time capitalism didn’t had a socialist counterpart and there was no need to look social anymore).

arduanika 7y ago
> In fact the reason why the language on the right is so unhinged is because they belive it gives them a tactical advantage and not because any of them believes in free speech per se. Mindreading. > They literally don’t care about the fallout their language has on society as long as it brings them political power. Mindreading. Possible projection too, but I don't want to engage in mindreading. > become aware of the many realities encoded in speech and avoid saying things that negatively impact others Get a time machine, tell that truck to James Madison. Tell it to John Stuart Mill. There is one proven way of raising consciousness and of expanding the possibilities of consciousness, and that's free speech. Every other mode of conceptualizing the kaleidoscope of realities leads to bad places. Every other mode other than free speech is a blasphemy against the Enlightenment. I will defend your right to blaspheme of course, but reserve my right to sneer at your "dialectic" and at your deeply broken toxic simile about how "words and speech are exceedingly used like weapons". s/like/in lieu/, and we should be damn grateful for it.

bontaq 7y ago

It's kind of interesting that this is the exact comment I expected to see. Obviously, the mockery of "free speech" as "freeze peach" is because the meaning behind that, for a lot of people complaining about it, is that they would like to say something hateful. It's so frequent that it's become a meme. It's unfortunate, and places that put an emphasis on free speech are shitholes like gab and voat. They would like whatever hate they're selling to have a bigger audience, and it's not really on corporations to provide that. I would say the term has been co-opted by the right in online spaces, which makes it hard to talk about. It's no longer classical "free speech," almost always you have ask, "what were you trying to say with that free speech?" Are they being banned for being anti-government? Anti-bank? Anti-military? Anti-religion? The pro- versions of those? Or is it maybe something else. Your vision of a "leftist" crack down, could be interpreted as the "right" getting more extreme and being banned.

koonsolo 7y ago
The "left" seem to be offended by facts too, which as a rational person, seems very strange to me. Like the guy who got fired from google by stating facts, etc. Make no mistake, both extreme left and right are totalitarian dictatorships. With the extreme left even more dangerous, as history clearly shows.
- bontaq 7y ago
  That's nice, would you mind stating a fact the left is offended by?
  - koonsolo 7y ago
    All things related to the "gender equality paradox" seems to be a hard one to swallow for the left. This is also the one that got Google employee James Damore fired. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender-equality_paradox https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender-equality_paradox
    - bontaq 7y ago

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tarsinge 7y ago

Isn’t there a confusion between free speech and social consequences of opinions? Protection from the second is not a right. Saying something hugely unpopular to a group, no matter the validity of the claim, will generate a strong response from that group. That one group is overly represented for example in Universities is a political problem, not a free speech problem. If you say something racist in the US, you just get a social (media) outcry. But in France for example, it’s also illegal, so you also literally get a fine.

krageon 7y ago

It is a sad day when you read a (presumed) US citizen advocating free speech and lamenting it's social decline and you must make the only assumption that makes sense: They are a closet racist. This is the only group of people you see consistently advocating this online and it always ends up with the kind of thinly veiled slurs we already start seeing in this post: "far left", talking about Trump, the works. As for your closing point: Free speech is great, but when it is in support of the president the US has now and his fascist cronies I think we could stand to have a little less. The Germans figured this out many years ago because the US (among others) made them mend their ways, so there is boundless irony to be found in the kind of unsavoury thinking that allows it to spread again.

wind0w 7y ago

I'm extremely wary of any claim that there is a "progressive monoculture" on tech platforms. The only "free speech" that seems to be suppressed is straight up hate speech -- open white supremacy, homophobia, misogyny, etc. The kind of speech that everyone should find contemptible regardless of political orientation. Where are the cries of "free speech" from conservatives when for example Google punishes its employees for union organizing?