6 ms·

No, the utterly ridiculous "paradox of tolerance" is just a bad cope for people who truly do not believe in free speech. "Free speech" which only applies to you

by valvar 6y ago

No, the utterly ridiculous "paradox of tolerance" is just a bad cope for people who truly do not believe in free speech. "Free speech" which only applies to your predefined set of approved speech is not free speech, but a monstrous parody of it. The purpose of free speech is to enable dissent, not to affirm the status quo.

sebmellen 6y ago
To piggyback on this, here is a quote from Karl Popper (the "discoverer" of the Paradox of Tolerance): > I do not imply, for instance, that we should always suppress the utterance of intolerant philosophies; as long as we can counter them by rational argument and keep them in check by public opinion, suppression would certainly be unwise.
- gameswithgo 6y ago
  >as long as we can counter them by rational argument I don't know if y'all are new to the internet, but I've been here since around 1990 and we ration argument hasn't done any good. I feel like a lot of these ideas around speech are ones that came from people who were used to arguing with other intelligent people. When the unwashed masses are involved, rational argument doesn't work at all. Some people understand this, which is why people like Trump can get elected. It wasn't as if there was a failure of making rational arguments to counter him. The average person just does not care/understand what a rational argument is. I offer no solutions here, sorry.
  - sebmellen 6y ago
    I strongly disagree with you on one point: > When the unwashed masses are involved, rational argument doesn't work at all I believe this is an extremely illiberal viewpoint. Someone who can make this argument could well be a monarchist, fascist, or totalitarian at heart. The foundation of a democracy is the belief that the "unwashed masses" can hold informed views on politics, and at the very least should have the right to. Also, the average person DOES care what a rational argument is. A significant amount of Trump's 2016 voter base understood him to be a populist to the left of Hillary. His campaign rhetoric of isolationism and ending the wars spoke to large swaths of the population, which swept him into office. Now, all the issues you point out are important, and must be tackled, but I don't think the right way to tackle them is to label groups of people with a broad brush. If we understand that people are capable of being informed, we should ask: "how can people be informed>", and "what can we do to make sure that informing people in an unbiased way is possible?". I don't think social media companies like Facebook, Twitter, and Reddit have asked themselves these questions, at least not with any sincerity. I think HN is a great example of the principles of (nearly) free speech in action. Look at the discussion we're having now!
    - gameswithgo 6y ago
      >I think HN is a great example of the principles of (nearly) free speech in action. Look at the discussion we're having now! Yes, and HN filters out most of the "unwashed masses" I share your view, about my view being kind of horrible, but I think it is largely true
  - ceilingcorner 6y ago
    You can start by not referring to the public at large as ‘unwashed masses.’ With rhetoric like that commonplace among the media elite, are you really surprised Trump won?
- DavidVoid 6y ago
  With t_D it was clearly not possible to counter them with rational arguments, because all users who went against their moderators' views were immediately banned from the sub.
- blackbrokkoli 6y ago
  When one sides always takes the intellectual high ground, the other side can go continually lower, all while amassing significant cult-like follower ship. Alphabet Soup, machinegun argumentation, at hominem, gaslighting, oversimplification, non sequitur. It does not end in free society prevailing.
achn 6y ago
Sorry,free speech does not mean that private companies have to provide their resources and time to support your hate speech. It means that you, on public property, using your own resources, have the freedom to say what you want without reprisal from the government. But even that should have limits, especially when your “free speech” limits the right to liberty and prosperity of others (most isms).
- henriquez 6y ago
  The first half of your statement is true but irrelevant here as the controversy touched on in the OP is that reddit as an organization _used to_ purport to stand for free speech.
- tortasaur 6y ago
  Free speech is a philosophical concept and ideal that extends far beyond the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
cies 6y ago
Nonsense. Do you think movies of child abuse are "free speech", or recruitment/instruction videos tot terrorist organizations, or inciting violence and hate? What about Assange, he published some stuff, could that be free speech? Or violations of copyright? To me free speech is like free markets. The word does not adequately cover the implementation as boundaries do apply. There are little to non truly free markets (no tax, no imp/ex restrictions, etc). And there is not truly free speech. And to limit freedom to speech to prevent hate/violence inciting crowds to get a platform may --according to me-- be necessary in some cases and is allowed by many of the worlds constitutions. On top of that Reddit is a private platform, so they are free to set their standard, just like you may prohibit some speech in your own household (under the thread of being expelled or "no longer welcome).
- bfieidhbrjr 6y ago
  You're mixing up a lot of things. Child abuse is a physical act and isn't speech. Recruitment and instructional videos are speech. Assange is speech, but, he wasn't a journalist with protections for handling secret information. Copyright used to have a limited term before it dropped in to the public domain where it would become speech. These are all different things with their own problems.
  - cies 6y ago
    > Child abuse is a physical act and isn't speech. I say movies of such acts. That's not the act itself. See Japan where comics that show sexual abuse of "young looking individuals" are freely distributed. > These are all different things with their own problems. > You're mixing up a lot of things. No, they are all current limitations to free speech encoded in law. I mean to say (please re-read my comment) that "true free speech" already does not exist (just like "truly free markets" dont). > Recruitment and instructional videos are speech. Try massively sharing those to the wider public: I'm curious how long you stay free or your endeavors remain uninterrupted. Lol.
    - pleasebegood 6y ago
      > See Japan where comics that show sexual abuse of "young looking individuals" are freely distributed. https://myanimelist.net/manga/127513/Dansei_Kyoufushou_Datta_Watashi_ga_AV_Joyuu_ni_Naru_made_no_Hanashi https://myanimelist.net/manga/127513/Dansei_Kyoufushou_Datta... A manga that depicts serious child abuse that turned the author into a porn star. It's written by herself. Maybe she shouldn't be allowed to express herself and hide it. We can all then live a happy fantasy where everyone is a good person in any depiction. My first thought when reading the manga, how can we stop this? Suffice to say, I didn't enjoy it one bit but I never thought this should be censored. There are many similar manga that depicts all sorts of stuff. Some of them written by the people which were unfortunate. It's also evident you don't care about the medium because you used the word comic. Censorship of evil acts was rampant in the history. People didn't want to admit what others were doing. There are broader issues if people are pushed to the extreme by media. Why would someone join a terrorist group after watching one of their videos? There must be something else causing the problem. The videos are a symptom, not a cause. Last, I have consumed media of both your examples. It didn't turn me into a child abuser or a terrorist. I want to help make world a safer place for children and terrorism free more than before. I want to stop it so it stops get depicted on its own.
pwdisswordfish4 6y ago
Affirm the status quo, as in the currently elected US president?
- valvar 6y ago
  Clearly I must have misunderstood something, then. Reddit's suppression is obviously an anomaly, and in actuality the POTUS and his followers are dictating the boundaries of acceptable speech via their domination of academia, the media, and tech giants.
claudiawerner 6y ago
>is just a bad cope for people who truly do not believe in free speech I don't think this is the case; there are theories which are highly skeptical of free speech, and they are easy to turn to; one doesn't have to give up much in order to be a free speech skeptic. Further, even in the United States, the country with the fewest restrictions of free speech, there are still several kinds of speech prohibited by law. I'm not aware of any theory, liberal or not, which argues for purely unrestricted speech. There are always caveats in every theory proposed, whether it relates to incitement of violence, child pornography, threatening letters, hate speech, or pornography.
- valvar 6y ago
  It's good that you acknowledge your (or so I assume) skepticism of the concept as such. Pretending that the exceptions which do not relate to political speech are relevant or even interesting is almost in bad faith, however. Free speech is about political speech, and the expression of controversial views. Things which you cannot say which are non-political are curiosities, things for lawyers to get excited about. They are of no concern to those who actually care about freedom of speech and thought as such. But "hate speech", which you offhandedly list among other largely irrelevant forms of expression, should most certainly be covered by any serious definition of free speech. And that is the actual reason for why many find free speech so repulsive — it requires them to accept the expression of political views which are inimical to their own. This is of course not exclusive to that particular form of speech — I think history can provide plenty of similar examples.
  - claudiawerner 6y ago
    >It's good that you acknowledge your (or so I assume) skepticism of the concept as such. Personally, I'm skeptical only to a philosophical level, as I am critical of both liberalism and the state, and in particular how the state would exercise its blunt power if free speech protections were weakened. In practical terms, I'm in favour of freedom of speech. > Pretending that the exceptions which do not relate to political speech are relevant or even interesting is almost in bad faith, however. My point was more to get accross the idea that there are political theories of free speech (actually implemented or not) which (1) have what is called a "free speech principle", that is, an explicit endorsement and guarantee, to some or any extent, of the right to speak freely (2) enshrine this principle into a law, or suggest that it should be enshrined. >Things which you cannot say which are non-political are curiosities, things for lawyers to get excited about. They're also interesting in philosophical thought experiments and determining the value and extents of free speech - most imporantly in the idea of consistency. If threatening letters are disallowed, for instance, what implications does this have, speaking in terms of principles, for more "interesting" sorts of speech? It may have no implications (according to one theory of justification) but it may have far-reaching implications for another. >But "hate speech", which you offhandedly list among other largely irrelevant forms of expression, should most certainly be covered by any serious definition of free speech. My point in listing the exceptions was to say that if there is some exception, any exception, it means the rule is not absolute, and caveats can be made under certain circumstances. For example, incitement to immediate and direct violence is often an "uninteresting" exception. This is because violence is a kind of harm. However, the law also recognizes various other forms of harm (such as psychological harms). Which harms should or shouldn't be included, and why? The question that 1A scholars and political philosophers have tried to answer is what, precisely, the exceptions should be, what the existing exceptions may allow scope for (copyright infringement? child pornography? cyberbullying? obscenity? defamation? - by no means uninteresting), and in general, whether we should have a fundamental law to guarantee freedom of speech at all. I think they're valid questions, and I think that too often we take ideas such as free speech allowing hate speech (however those two things are defined[0]), or free speech being worth the cost of hate speech, for granted. [0] To paraphrase Susan Brison, these are hard to define. That's okay, we can talk about it. We don't have to write the law before we can discuss whether there could be alaw.
Avamander 6y ago
Yeah, but r/thedonald did not provide free speech to the other side. Don't try to tell me it was some bastion of free speech that could be brought up as an example of such.
andrepd 6y ago
Painting an opposing view as "utterly ridiculous" is not the best way to start an argument. But moving on. It's always interesting to see that, when actually probing deeper, almost no-one believes in truly unrestricted free speech, even people who proclaim themselves as free speech champions (such as yourself). For example, can I slander you? If I own a newspaper, can I try to convince my readers that you're a pedophile? Can I tell someone to commit murder for me (after all, it's just speech, it was the other guy who pulled the trigger)? Can I tell a suicidal person that they're worthless, nobody will ever like them, and they should just kill themselves? Can I lie under oath? Can I psychologically abuse my children? If you responded "no" to any of these questions, you also don't believe in absolute free speech, now it's just a matter of arguing where to draw the line.
- sebmellen 6y ago
  Libel laws have historically had an extremely high burden of proof. The right wing is usually the first to try to expand these laws (as with Trump, maybe Peter Thiel/Gawker). Libel is also a civil offence if it is one, which again, is extremely hard to prove. Telling someone to commit murder for you is an example of speech directly inciting violent action, so no, that would be a criminal act. It's iffy whether telling someone they should commit suicide is free speech or not. Given that suicide is illegal in most societies, it would probably be illegal in the same way directly inciting violent action is, though the subtleties of the case matter. No, lying under oath is a violation of a contract. That is outside the realm of free speech because you willingly and knowingly restrict your freedom of speech to testify under oath. Psychologically abusing your children — again, a very fine line, with a very high burden of proof. Psychological abuse is almost never punishable unless it crosses over into the physical world, which can also include things like curtailing access to proper nutrition, etc. But at that point, it's not a matter of free speech, but of child neglect.
- valvar 6y ago
  I really do not see what your point is. Of course there are things that are and should be illegal to say — but none of them are really politically relevant. Protecting free speech is about protecting dissent and the expression of political and related (e.g. artistic) ideas. Perhaps you can contrive of situations where your examples overlap with dissent. I guess the main one will be inciting violence, and in this case the "paradox" isn't entirely ridiculous. The problem is that it can be used as a very convenient justification for the suppression of entire heterogeneous groups. Which is why the violence itself is what should be illegal, and not the speech.

by valvar 6y ago

sebmellen 6y ago

To piggyback on this, here is a quote from Karl Popper (the "discoverer" of the Paradox of Tolerance): > I do not imply, for instance, that we should always suppress the utterance of intolerant philosophies; as long as we can counter them by rational argument and keep them in check by public opinion, suppression would certainly be unwise.

gameswithgo 6y ago
>as long as we can counter them by rational argument I don't know if y'all are new to the internet, but I've been here since around 1990 and we ration argument hasn't done any good. I feel like a lot of these ideas around speech are ones that came from people who were used to arguing with other intelligent people. When the unwashed masses are involved, rational argument doesn't work at all. Some people understand this, which is why people like Trump can get elected. It wasn't as if there was a failure of making rational arguments to counter him. The average person just does not care/understand what a rational argument is. I offer no solutions here, sorry.
- sebmellen 6y ago
  I strongly disagree with you on one point: > When the unwashed masses are involved, rational argument doesn't work at all I believe this is an extremely illiberal viewpoint. Someone who can make this argument could well be a monarchist, fascist, or totalitarian at heart. The foundation of a democracy is the belief that the "unwashed masses" can hold informed views on politics, and at the very least should have the right to. Also, the average person DOES care what a rational argument is. A significant amount of Trump's 2016 voter base understood him to be a populist to the left of Hillary. His campaign rhetoric of isolationism and ending the wars spoke to large swaths of the population, which swept him into office. Now, all the issues you point out are important, and must be tackled, but I don't think the right way to tackle them is to label groups of people with a broad brush. If we understand that people are capable of being informed, we should ask: "how can people be informed>", and "what can we do to make sure that informing people in an unbiased way is possible?". I don't think social media companies like Facebook, Twitter, and Reddit have asked themselves these questions, at least not with any sincerity. I think HN is a great example of the principles of (nearly) free speech in action. Look at the discussion we're having now!
  - gameswithgo 6y ago
    >I think HN is a great example of the principles of (nearly) free speech in action. Look at the discussion we're having now! Yes, and HN filters out most of the "unwashed masses" I share your view, about my view being kind of horrible, but I think it is largely true
- ceilingcorner 6y ago
  You can start by not referring to the public at large as ‘unwashed masses.’ With rhetoric like that commonplace among the media elite, are you really surprised Trump won?
DavidVoid 6y ago
With t_D it was clearly not possible to counter them with rational arguments, because all users who went against their moderators' views were immediately banned from the sub.
blackbrokkoli 6y ago
When one sides always takes the intellectual high ground, the other side can go continually lower, all while amassing significant cult-like follower ship. Alphabet Soup, machinegun argumentation, at hominem, gaslighting, oversimplification, non sequitur. It does not end in free society prevailing.

achn 6y ago

Sorry,free speech does not mean that private companies have to provide their resources and time to support your hate speech. It means that you, on public property, using your own resources, have the freedom to say what you want without reprisal from the government. But even that should have limits, especially when your “free speech” limits the right to liberty and prosperity of others (most isms).

henriquez 6y ago
The first half of your statement is true but irrelevant here as the controversy touched on in the OP is that reddit as an organization _used to_ purport to stand for free speech.
tortasaur 6y ago
Free speech is a philosophical concept and ideal that extends far beyond the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

cies 6y ago

Nonsense. Do you think movies of child abuse are "free speech", or recruitment/instruction videos tot terrorist organizations, or inciting violence and hate? What about Assange, he published some stuff, could that be free speech? Or violations of copyright? To me free speech is like free markets. The word does not adequately cover the implementation as boundaries do apply. There are little to non truly free markets (no tax, no imp/ex restrictions, etc). And there is not truly free speech. And to limit freedom to speech to prevent hate/violence inciting crowds to get a platform may --according to me-- be necessary in some cases and is allowed by many of the worlds constitutions. On top of that Reddit is a private platform, so they are free to set their standard, just like you may prohibit some speech in your own household (under the thread of being expelled or "no longer welcome).

bfieidhbrjr 6y ago
You're mixing up a lot of things. Child abuse is a physical act and isn't speech. Recruitment and instructional videos are speech. Assange is speech, but, he wasn't a journalist with protections for handling secret information. Copyright used to have a limited term before it dropped in to the public domain where it would become speech. These are all different things with their own problems.
- cies 6y ago
  > Child abuse is a physical act and isn't speech. I say movies of such acts. That's not the act itself. See Japan where comics that show sexual abuse of "young looking individuals" are freely distributed. > These are all different things with their own problems. > You're mixing up a lot of things. No, they are all current limitations to free speech encoded in law. I mean to say (please re-read my comment) that "true free speech" already does not exist (just like "truly free markets" dont). > Recruitment and instructional videos are speech. Try massively sharing those to the wider public: I'm curious how long you stay free or your endeavors remain uninterrupted. Lol.
  - pleasebegood 6y ago
    > See Japan where comics that show sexual abuse of "young looking individuals" are freely distributed. https://myanimelist.net/manga/127513/Dansei_Kyoufushou_Datta_Watashi_ga_AV_Joyuu_ni_Naru_made_no_Hanashi https://myanimelist.net/manga/127513/Dansei_Kyoufushou_Datta... A manga that depicts serious child abuse that turned the author into a porn star. It's written by herself. Maybe she shouldn't be allowed to express herself and hide it. We can all then live a happy fantasy where everyone is a good person in any depiction. My first thought when reading the manga, how can we stop this? Suffice to say, I didn't enjoy it one bit but I never thought this should be censored. There are many similar manga that depicts all sorts of stuff. Some of them written by the people which were unfortunate. It's also evident you don't care about the medium because you used the word comic. Censorship of evil acts was rampant in the history. People didn't want to admit what others were doing. There are broader issues if people are pushed to the extreme by media. Why would someone join a terrorist group after watching one of their videos? There must be something else causing the problem. The videos are a symptom, not a cause. Last, I have consumed media of both your examples. It didn't turn me into a child abuser or a terrorist. I want to help make world a safer place for children and terrorism free more than before. I want to stop it so it stops get depicted on its own.

pwdisswordfish4 6y ago

Affirm the status quo, as in the currently elected US president?

valvar 6y ago
Clearly I must have misunderstood something, then. Reddit's suppression is obviously an anomaly, and in actuality the POTUS and his followers are dictating the boundaries of acceptable speech via their domination of academia, the media, and tech giants.

claudiawerner 6y ago

>is just a bad cope for people who truly do not believe in free speech I don't think this is the case; there are theories which are highly skeptical of free speech, and they are easy to turn to; one doesn't have to give up much in order to be a free speech skeptic. Further, even in the United States, the country with the fewest restrictions of free speech, there are still several kinds of speech prohibited by law. I'm not aware of any theory, liberal or not, which argues for purely unrestricted speech. There are always caveats in every theory proposed, whether it relates to incitement of violence, child pornography, threatening letters, hate speech, or pornography.

valvar 6y ago
It's good that you acknowledge your (or so I assume) skepticism of the concept as such. Pretending that the exceptions which do not relate to political speech are relevant or even interesting is almost in bad faith, however. Free speech is about political speech, and the expression of controversial views. Things which you cannot say which are non-political are curiosities, things for lawyers to get excited about. They are of no concern to those who actually care about freedom of speech and thought as such. But "hate speech", which you offhandedly list among other largely irrelevant forms of expression, should most certainly be covered by any serious definition of free speech. And that is the actual reason for why many find free speech so repulsive — it requires them to accept the expression of political views which are inimical to their own. This is of course not exclusive to that particular form of speech — I think history can provide plenty of similar examples.
- claudiawerner 6y ago
  >It's good that you acknowledge your (or so I assume) skepticism of the concept as such. Personally, I'm skeptical only to a philosophical level, as I am critical of both liberalism and the state, and in particular how the state would exercise its blunt power if free speech protections were weakened. In practical terms, I'm in favour of freedom of speech. > Pretending that the exceptions which do not relate to political speech are relevant or even interesting is almost in bad faith, however. My point was more to get accross the idea that there are political theories of free speech (actually implemented or not) which (1) have what is called a "free speech principle", that is, an explicit endorsement and guarantee, to some or any extent, of the right to speak freely (2) enshrine this principle into a law, or suggest that it should be enshrined. >Things which you cannot say which are non-political are curiosities, things for lawyers to get excited about. They're also interesting in philosophical thought experiments and determining the value and extents of free speech - most imporantly in the idea of consistency. If threatening letters are disallowed, for instance, what implications does this have, speaking in terms of principles, for more "interesting" sorts of speech? It may have no implications (according to one theory of justification) but it may have far-reaching implications for another. >But "hate speech", which you offhandedly list among other largely irrelevant forms of expression, should most certainly be covered by any serious definition of free speech. My point in listing the exceptions was to say that if there is some exception, any exception, it means the rule is not absolute, and caveats can be made under certain circumstances. For example, incitement to immediate and direct violence is often an "uninteresting" exception. This is because violence is a kind of harm. However, the law also recognizes various other forms of harm (such as psychological harms). Which harms should or shouldn't be included, and why? The question that 1A scholars and political philosophers have tried to answer is what, precisely, the exceptions should be, what the existing exceptions may allow scope for (copyright infringement? child pornography? cyberbullying? obscenity? defamation? - by no means uninteresting), and in general, whether we should have a fundamental law to guarantee freedom of speech at all. I think they're valid questions, and I think that too often we take ideas such as free speech allowing hate speech (however those two things are defined[0]), or free speech being worth the cost of hate speech, for granted. [0] To paraphrase Susan Brison, these are hard to define. That's okay, we can talk about it. We don't have to write the law before we can discuss whether there could be alaw.

Avamander 6y ago

Yeah, but r/thedonald did not provide free speech to the other side. Don't try to tell me it was some bastion of free speech that could be brought up as an example of such.

andrepd 6y ago

Painting an opposing view as "utterly ridiculous" is not the best way to start an argument. But moving on. It's always interesting to see that, when actually probing deeper, almost no-one believes in truly unrestricted free speech, even people who proclaim themselves as free speech champions (such as yourself). For example, can I slander you? If I own a newspaper, can I try to convince my readers that you're a pedophile? Can I tell someone to commit murder for me (after all, it's just speech, it was the other guy who pulled the trigger)? Can I tell a suicidal person that they're worthless, nobody will ever like them, and they should just kill themselves? Can I lie under oath? Can I psychologically abuse my children? If you responded "no" to any of these questions, you also don't believe in absolute free speech, now it's just a matter of arguing where to draw the line.

sebmellen 6y ago
Libel laws have historically had an extremely high burden of proof. The right wing is usually the first to try to expand these laws (as with Trump, maybe Peter Thiel/Gawker). Libel is also a civil offence if it is one, which again, is extremely hard to prove. Telling someone to commit murder for you is an example of speech directly inciting violent action, so no, that would be a criminal act. It's iffy whether telling someone they should commit suicide is free speech or not. Given that suicide is illegal in most societies, it would probably be illegal in the same way directly inciting violent action is, though the subtleties of the case matter. No, lying under oath is a violation of a contract. That is outside the realm of free speech because you willingly and knowingly restrict your freedom of speech to testify under oath. Psychologically abusing your children — again, a very fine line, with a very high burden of proof. Psychological abuse is almost never punishable unless it crosses over into the physical world, which can also include things like curtailing access to proper nutrition, etc. But at that point, it's not a matter of free speech, but of child neglect.
valvar 6y ago
I really do not see what your point is. Of course there are things that are and should be illegal to say — but none of them are really politically relevant. Protecting free speech is about protecting dissent and the expression of political and related (e.g. artistic) ideas. Perhaps you can contrive of situations where your examples overlap with dissent. I guess the main one will be inciting violence, and in this case the "paradox" isn't entirely ridiculous. The problem is that it can be used as a very convenient justification for the suppression of entire heterogeneous groups. Which is why the violence itself is what should be illegal, and not the speech.