4 ms·

That comic always rubbed me the wrong way. I think that there's two big things: 1. Regardless of whether the First Amendment legally compels it, I don't think

That comic always rubbed me the wrong way. I think that there's two big things: 1. Regardless of whether the First Amendment legally compels it, I don't think that a healthy democracy can exist in a society that doesn't have tolerance for unpopular speech. 2. I disagree that citing free speech means that you are saying that "the most compelling thing you can say for your position is that it isn't literally illegal to express". What if you applied that same logic to other rights? For example, is Black Lives Matter saying that "the most you can say about black people is that they shouldn't be killed"? That would be ridiculous. Basically, I think the comic misses the point: the First Amendment establishes the absolute minimum amount of tolerance for a society to not be authoritarian. It doesn't on it's own define the full extent of what constitutes the right to free speech in a healthy democracy.

mywittyname 6y ago
RE #2: I agree with you in principle. But in practice, I think most situations that devolve into free speech arguments are over "I have the right to be an asshole" statements. As the comic points out, it's basically the only argument you have when your comments have no merit.
mesozoic 6y ago
Good points. Also I think you should consider the monopolization of communication platforms. What percentage of all communication is done on a only a very few sites. Even further problematic behavior is those sites can use widespread methods to silence particular types of points of view. This even stifles the ability for use of other platforms to spread a message across the population.
spaced-out 6y ago
>Regardless of whether the First Amendment legally compels it, I don't think that a healthy democracy can exist in a society that doesn't have tolerance for unpopular speech. Society should tolerate it in terms of not throwing people in jail for speech. We have to remember, though, that if we want a marketplace of ideas, we have to let the marketplace do its thing. If the vast majority of people don't like your speech, you may be relegated to the grimy back-quarters of the internet, just as cranks and racists in the past were relegated to shitty newsletters and HTML pages. This is part of how healthy discourse happens in society. If society can't push out shitty/toxic/dumb ideas from our discourse, we'll just be recycling the same nonsense over and over again and never make progress solving real problems.
pornel 6y ago
> First Amendment establishes the absolute minimum amount of tolerance for a society to not be authoritarian. In the context of Trump being upset at Twitter, it's the government wanting unrestricted speech, and trying to retaliate against a private company trying to hold the government accountable. Trump doesn't want anyone correct his claims about legality of mail voting. He doesn't want any pushback against him threatening use of military. The concept of free speech is being flipped around here and weaponized to protect government's own pro-authoritarian messages. Free speech is supposed to protect speech of the oppressed, not the oppressors.
- duckMuppet 6y ago
  Yes but ironically Twitter tags Trump tweets about election fraud just after another report of a letter carrier tampering with mail in ballots. There are numerous stories that don't get attention about problems with mail in voting because access media doesn't want a certain narrative. At the same time, Twitter doesn't tag a Trump tweet about Joe Scarborough alleging an affair and murder of an intern/co-worker which is all wild speculation and completely inappropriate. It's all obvious politics at this point, and everyone simply screams their sides' talking points. I don't like the executive branch legislating, that is what the Congress is supposed to do. But far too long have tech companies straddled the line between publisher or platform, (soft censoring it's users/clients which i have a problem with instead of just removing them from the platform which i think is well within their rights). Hopefully this opens up all these companies who editorialize their users content to class action and other legal opinions and actions. At the very least maybe the courts and the Congress will weigh in and we can get most of these grey areas removed. We might have less options for social media and news agencies and some might even be completely destroyed. Likewise, i think a lot of users will be removed and or deplatformed. But these are all costs we need to bear to finally get peace on the web.
brnt 6y ago
Why is it repeated that Twitter is somehow a public space? It's a commercial platform. Post on your own blog if you want more freedom (to spout hate).
- jjcon 6y ago
  >Post on your own blog Hosted by blogger/google? Hosted by Wordpress? On your own website with a domain purchased from name cheap with a MasterCard? It’s impossible to interact in public spaces without also touching private entities. That doesn’t mean that we should just let corporations determine what ‘right speech’ is.
  - brnt 6y ago
    A purchased domain with a purchased server counts here as private property. Self host if you must. We should definitely allow property owners accept or refuse certain behaviors on their premises. If you step onto my lawn and spout similar nonsense, I'll kick you out all the same. Stand on your own soil if you insist on shouting low quality and ill informed troll comments.

mywittyname 6y ago

RE #2: I agree with you in principle. But in practice, I think most situations that devolve into free speech arguments are over "I have the right to be an asshole" statements. As the comic points out, it's basically the only argument you have when your comments have no merit.

mesozoic 6y ago

Good points. Also I think you should consider the monopolization of communication platforms. What percentage of all communication is done on a only a very few sites. Even further problematic behavior is those sites can use widespread methods to silence particular types of points of view. This even stifles the ability for use of other platforms to spread a message across the population.

spaced-out 6y ago

>Regardless of whether the First Amendment legally compels it, I don't think that a healthy democracy can exist in a society that doesn't have tolerance for unpopular speech. Society should tolerate it in terms of not throwing people in jail for speech. We have to remember, though, that if we want a marketplace of ideas, we have to let the marketplace do its thing. If the vast majority of people don't like your speech, you may be relegated to the grimy back-quarters of the internet, just as cranks and racists in the past were relegated to shitty newsletters and HTML pages. This is part of how healthy discourse happens in society. If society can't push out shitty/toxic/dumb ideas from our discourse, we'll just be recycling the same nonsense over and over again and never make progress solving real problems.

pornel 6y ago

> First Amendment establishes the absolute minimum amount of tolerance for a society to not be authoritarian. In the context of Trump being upset at Twitter, it's the government wanting unrestricted speech, and trying to retaliate against a private company trying to hold the government accountable. Trump doesn't want anyone correct his claims about legality of mail voting. He doesn't want any pushback against him threatening use of military. The concept of free speech is being flipped around here and weaponized to protect government's own pro-authoritarian messages. Free speech is supposed to protect speech of the oppressed, not the oppressors.

duckMuppet 6y ago
Yes but ironically Twitter tags Trump tweets about election fraud just after another report of a letter carrier tampering with mail in ballots. There are numerous stories that don't get attention about problems with mail in voting because access media doesn't want a certain narrative. At the same time, Twitter doesn't tag a Trump tweet about Joe Scarborough alleging an affair and murder of an intern/co-worker which is all wild speculation and completely inappropriate. It's all obvious politics at this point, and everyone simply screams their sides' talking points. I don't like the executive branch legislating, that is what the Congress is supposed to do. But far too long have tech companies straddled the line between publisher or platform, (soft censoring it's users/clients which i have a problem with instead of just removing them from the platform which i think is well within their rights). Hopefully this opens up all these companies who editorialize their users content to class action and other legal opinions and actions. At the very least maybe the courts and the Congress will weigh in and we can get most of these grey areas removed. We might have less options for social media and news agencies and some might even be completely destroyed. Likewise, i think a lot of users will be removed and or deplatformed. But these are all costs we need to bear to finally get peace on the web.

brnt 6y ago

Why is it repeated that Twitter is somehow a public space? It's a commercial platform. Post on your own blog if you want more freedom (to spout hate).

jjcon 6y ago
>Post on your own blog Hosted by blogger/google? Hosted by Wordpress? On your own website with a domain purchased from name cheap with a MasterCard? It’s impossible to interact in public spaces without also touching private entities. That doesn’t mean that we should just let corporations determine what ‘right speech’ is.
- brnt 6y ago
  A purchased domain with a purchased server counts here as private property. Self host if you must. We should definitely allow property owners accept or refuse certain behaviors on their premises. If you step onto my lawn and spout similar nonsense, I'll kick you out all the same. Stand on your own soil if you insist on shouting low quality and ill informed troll comments.