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The problem with banning "harmful" speech is creating the justification to ban any speech by labeling it harmful. You fight harmful speech in the marketplace o

by T-hawk 6y ago

The problem with banning "harmful" speech is creating the justification to ban any speech by labeling it harmful. You fight harmful speech in the marketplace of ideas, by convincing those who might listen to ignore or counter it. Fighting it by forcibly banning it is just might-makes-right.

krapp 6y ago
> The problem with banning "harmful" speech is creating the justification to ban any speech by labeling it harmful. Let's rewrite your assertion in more general terms: The problem with banning any "harmful" activity is creating the justification to ban any activity by labeling it "harmful." Further: The problem with banning "murder" is creating the justification to ban any activity by labeling it "murder." It's logically consistent, and grammatically coherent. "Harm" is just a word like "murder" that can mean anything we decide it does. But there's nothing about speech within a framework of regulation which makes it more amenable to the slippery slope than any other activity, yet somehow we manage to live in a society where arbitrary activities aren't persecuted as murder, because human beings are capable of exercising judgement and discretion, and of appreciating context and nuance. Therefore it should be possible to define "harmful" speech in such a way that distinguishes harm from not-harm. The slope may exist, but it isn't that slippery. And if it gets too slippery, we're perfectly capable of installing a railing. >You fight harmful speech in the marketplace of ideas, by convincing those who might listen to ignore or counter it. Do you think that QAnon or anti-vaxxers or white supremacists are unaware of arguments to the contrary of their beliefs? That they only believe what they do because no one has ever engaged them in a debate in the "marketplace of ideas" and convinced them otherwise? If that was all it took, these cancerous memes would not have gotten as big as they have. The majority refuse to be convinced, so you've already lost on that front. By the time you've laid out your well formed and thoroughly sourced counterargument to whomever you find who actually cares to listen to it, Facebook memes and retweets by the President of the United States have already convinced ten thousand people that Bill Gates created COVID as an excuse to implant mind control chips into the populace so he and the Illuminati can more easily harvest their brain syrum, and the person you tried to debate is now convinced you're a disinfo shill and that Alex Jones was right after all. You fight harmful speech with both education and regulation. >Fighting it by forcibly banning it is just might-makes-right. No, it just means that a marketplace of ideas can still have standards and be a marketplace. A marketplace without rules is inevitably overrun by bad actors, charlatans and snake oil salesmen.

by T-hawk 6y ago

krapp 6y ago

> The problem with banning "harmful" speech is creating the justification to ban any speech by labeling it harmful. Let's rewrite your assertion in more general terms: The problem with banning any "harmful" activity is creating the justification to ban any activity by labeling it "harmful." Further: The problem with banning "murder" is creating the justification to ban any activity by labeling it "murder." It's logically consistent, and grammatically coherent. "Harm" is just a word like "murder" that can mean anything we decide it does. But there's nothing about speech within a framework of regulation which makes it more amenable to the slippery slope than any other activity, yet somehow we manage to live in a society where arbitrary activities aren't persecuted as murder, because human beings are capable of exercising judgement and discretion, and of appreciating context and nuance. Therefore it should be possible to define "harmful" speech in such a way that distinguishes harm from not-harm. The slope may exist, but it isn't that slippery. And if it gets too slippery, we're perfectly capable of installing a railing. >You fight harmful speech in the marketplace of ideas, by convincing those who might listen to ignore or counter it. Do you think that QAnon or anti-vaxxers or white supremacists are unaware of arguments to the contrary of their beliefs? That they only believe what they do because no one has ever engaged them in a debate in the "marketplace of ideas" and convinced them otherwise? If that was all it took, these cancerous memes would not have gotten as big as they have. The majority refuse to be convinced, so you've already lost on that front. By the time you've laid out your well formed and thoroughly sourced counterargument to whomever you find who actually cares to listen to it, Facebook memes and retweets by the President of the United States have already convinced ten thousand people that Bill Gates created COVID as an excuse to implant mind control chips into the populace so he and the Illuminati can more easily harvest their brain syrum, and the person you tried to debate is now convinced you're a disinfo shill and that Alex Jones was right after all. You fight harmful speech with both education and regulation. >Fighting it by forcibly banning it is just might-makes-right. No, it just means that a marketplace of ideas can still have standards and be a marketplace. A marketplace without rules is inevitably overrun by bad actors, charlatans and snake oil salesmen.