7 ms·

I'm 29 and have a question for those older than me. Until about 10 years ago, I dont remember ever hearing anyone arguing that we should limit free speech. I re

by 55555 6y ago

I'm 29 and have a question for those older than me. Until about 10 years ago, I dont remember ever hearing anyone arguing that we should limit free speech. I remember being told that the only limit was that you couldnt tell "fire" in a movie theater unless there really was a fire. This was a common refrain. I remember people talking about how free speech was what made America different. Everyone on both sides of the political aisle was proud of the first amendment. However, I was pretty young and my memory may be wrong. Has the discourse always been this way, or has it changed significantly in the past 10 years? If it changed, when did this start? After 9/11? After Trump? The current discourse is crazy to me. We have to remember that free speech is literally the FIRST amendment. Our founding fathers thought that basically nothing was more important than this. So we should err on the side of caution. It's east to restrict freedom and almost impossible to win it back. Although if you want to go a little bit further, they also would have had, as individuals, a higher tolerance for violence in the event that people wanted to "petition the government for a redress of grievances." Anyway, just curious to hear other people's opinions on when the importance of free speech started to diminish in our collective mind.

hackinthebochs 6y ago
It changed with the rise of social media. The first thing to note is that moral policing is impotent without coordination between like-minded individuals. Pre-social media, the religious right was the single most coordinated effort at policing and shaping culture. Naturally, the kinds of things they were interested in ran counter to progressive movements. It followed that the standard response from those on the left was to defend an expanded notion of free speech. In the 2000's, the religious influence in this country waned and the rise of social media created new ways to organize like minded individuals. Progressives found that they had the loudest voice and now free speech is less valuable to them than being able to shape society as they see fit. It's the ebb and flow of social power.
modriano 6y ago
> The current discourse is crazy to me. We have to remember that free speech is literally the FIRST amendment. Here's the first amendment: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." "Congress shall not abridge the freedom of speech." It doesn't say "freedom of speech is a mechanism that leads to truth", it doesn't say "freedom of speech means you have to let someone come into your house and speak at you", it doesn't say "freedom of speech means, if you build a social media platform, you have to let fascists use it to spread disinformation with a rapidity and accuracy of targeting that founding fathers could never possibly have conceived of". It just says "Congress shall not abridge the freedom of speech." In the age of social media, we have seen the truly perverse impacts that viral spread of lies can have, like in Myanmar where months of anti-Rohingya propaganda on Facebook lead to the genocide of the Rohingya [0]. Another perverse impact is the fostering of echo chambers where participants could freely share conspiracy theories and convince themselves of truly crazy things, like that Hillary Clinton ran a cabal of pedophiles that worked out of the basement of Comet Pizza, or that tens of thousands of election workers across many states executed a perfect rigging of the US election. In the past, people susceptible to fringe beliefs would struggle to find likeminded people and would have been too embarrassed to freely exercise speech, but per Facebook's own research: "64% of all extremist group joins are due to our recommendation tools” and that most of the activity came from the platform’s “Groups You Should Join” and “Discover” algorithms. [1][2]. Free speech was unleashed in a way never possible before. Last Wednesday, the elected Representatives and Senators of my country were in the process of certifying the results of my country's election, but they were violently interrupted by people who believe a set of lies that they've heard and read hundreds of times. Since this insurrection attempt, we've found a lot of footage indicating these people were looking to kill the Vice President and the Speaker of the House, the #2 and #3 people in the Presidential line of succession. I don't know why people think the 1st amendment means private companies, who aren't Congress at all, should have to make the fruits of their labor accessible to terrorists, or why that's a good thing. But a lot of people here seem to consider that to be an article of faith. I truly have no idea why. [0] https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/15/technology/myanmar-facebook-genocide.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/15/technology/myanmar-facebo... [1] https://www.wsj.com/articles/facebook-knows-it-encourages-division-top-executives-nixed-solutions-11590507499 https://www.wsj.com/articles/facebook-knows-it-encourages-di... [2] https://www.wired.com/story/opinion-platforms-must-pay-for-their-role-in-the-insurrection/ https://www.wired.com/story/opinion-platforms-must-pay-for-t...
- thesagan 6y ago
  I think the confusion stems from the fact that most people speak through or on private property—both digital and physical. But they're taught in school that there is a general "freedom of speech" which doesn't really exist. This sentiment is echoed in mass American media to adults. There's very little "public" speech in a legal sense. The most populated speech structures are privately owned. Censorship is built into those structures. America, as a whole, does not have "free speech" except for property owners. Unless you're on public property, behaving lawfully, such as in court, or "speaking truth" next to the post office, etc. etc. you don't have free speech. So, when people hold a good portion of their discourse through private structures, those structures seem public. The host companies seem like governments through terms of services. They see the first amendment as applying there by default.
  - asdff 6y ago
    There is plenty of public speech. You are free to start your own version of AWS and host whatever you'd like on it. You are free to stand on a street corner and start reading out loud from Mein Kampf if you'd like. You are even allowed to march the streets waving a nazi or confederate flag. Private people and companies, on the other hand, are under no obligation to help further your speech.
    - jelliclesfarm 6y ago
      Awesome. Now we have established that Big Tech and social media are against free speech, we can all move on.
      - asdff 6y ago
        They aren’t against free speech, they are irrelevant to the discussion. Is a bartender kicking out a rowdy patron against free speech?
        jelliclesfarm 6y ago
okaram 6y ago
What current discourse ? The impeachment, and a lot of the current discourse is that Mr Trump did basically yell fire in a crowded theater (he told his supporters to march to the Capitol).
okaram 6y ago
If you mean talk about if/how FB, Twitter etc should control speech on their platform, that has always been going on, and has nothing to do with the first amendment (Congress shall pass no law) I assume most internet geeks think technological restrictions are mostly futile (the internet routes around censorship), BTW.
- xtracto 6y ago
  Just ses how the RIAA played whack a mole from Napster onwards, then government played the same for DeCss, then the MPAA with torrents, and nowadays the government with deepweb markets. It's just a losing game that ends up affecting innocent people (like DRM in games) but theres just no way to win
pldr1234 6y ago
This is a post where the parent has already taken a very strong position/view, and is thinly veiling it in the form of a question (and not veiled very well either). Is there a way to report these types of posts? Or better yet, to have HN remove all this incessant political commentary. Perhaps I'll take the time to finally work on that custom Chrome extension project I've been meaning to tackle..
asdff 6y ago
I remember that you couldn't have nudity or profanity on TV. You couldn't say certain things on the radio. If you wanted to publish something particularly inflammatory and demeaning, the only outlet was to find some fringe press or do it yourself, because it would simply be unacceptable anywhere else. Free speech just means the government isn't going to prosecute you for saying something. That's it. Free speech doesn't mean Random House must publish your manifesto to all things awful. It also doesn't mean a private company is obligated to publish your derogatory tweet. Or for a company to host your website chock full of hateful language.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
lupire 6y ago
"Falsely yelling fire in a theater" theory was a judge's analogy for protesting the Vietnam War. The US passed the Alien and Sedition Acts centuries ago. These debates are age-old. Also, the First Amendment is less important than all the Articles of the Constitution, including the ones about the Electoral college. So by your theory (which is invalid because order of Amendment has nothing to do with relative importance, and you are a horrible person if you think free speech is more important than banning race-based slavery) peotectingt the Electoral College is more important than Free Speech

by 55555 6y ago

hackinthebochs 6y ago

It changed with the rise of social media. The first thing to note is that moral policing is impotent without coordination between like-minded individuals. Pre-social media, the religious right was the single most coordinated effort at policing and shaping culture. Naturally, the kinds of things they were interested in ran counter to progressive movements. It followed that the standard response from those on the left was to defend an expanded notion of free speech. In the 2000's, the religious influence in this country waned and the rise of social media created new ways to organize like minded individuals. Progressives found that they had the loudest voice and now free speech is less valuable to them than being able to shape society as they see fit. It's the ebb and flow of social power.

modriano 6y ago

> The current discourse is crazy to me. We have to remember that free speech is literally the FIRST amendment. Here's the first amendment: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." "Congress shall not abridge the freedom of speech." It doesn't say "freedom of speech is a mechanism that leads to truth", it doesn't say "freedom of speech means you have to let someone come into your house and speak at you", it doesn't say "freedom of speech means, if you build a social media platform, you have to let fascists use it to spread disinformation with a rapidity and accuracy of targeting that founding fathers could never possibly have conceived of". It just says "Congress shall not abridge the freedom of speech." In the age of social media, we have seen the truly perverse impacts that viral spread of lies can have, like in Myanmar where months of anti-Rohingya propaganda on Facebook lead to the genocide of the Rohingya [0]. Another perverse impact is the fostering of echo chambers where participants could freely share conspiracy theories and convince themselves of truly crazy things, like that Hillary Clinton ran a cabal of pedophiles that worked out of the basement of Comet Pizza, or that tens of thousands of election workers across many states executed a perfect rigging of the US election. In the past, people susceptible to fringe beliefs would struggle to find likeminded people and would have been too embarrassed to freely exercise speech, but per Facebook's own research: "64% of all extremist group joins are due to our recommendation tools” and that most of the activity came from the platform’s “Groups You Should Join” and “Discover” algorithms. [1][2]. Free speech was unleashed in a way never possible before. Last Wednesday, the elected Representatives and Senators of my country were in the process of certifying the results of my country's election, but they were violently interrupted by people who believe a set of lies that they've heard and read hundreds of times. Since this insurrection attempt, we've found a lot of footage indicating these people were looking to kill the Vice President and the Speaker of the House, the #2 and #3 people in the Presidential line of succession. I don't know why people think the 1st amendment means private companies, who aren't Congress at all, should have to make the fruits of their labor accessible to terrorists, or why that's a good thing. But a lot of people here seem to consider that to be an article of faith. I truly have no idea why. [0] https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/15/technology/myanmar-facebook-genocide.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/15/technology/myanmar-facebo... [1] https://www.wsj.com/articles/facebook-knows-it-encourages-division-top-executives-nixed-solutions-11590507499 https://www.wsj.com/articles/facebook-knows-it-encourages-di... [2] https://www.wired.com/story/opinion-platforms-must-pay-for-their-role-in-the-insurrection/ https://www.wired.com/story/opinion-platforms-must-pay-for-t...

thesagan 6y ago
I think the confusion stems from the fact that most people speak through or on private property—both digital and physical. But they're taught in school that there is a general "freedom of speech" which doesn't really exist. This sentiment is echoed in mass American media to adults. There's very little "public" speech in a legal sense. The most populated speech structures are privately owned. Censorship is built into those structures. America, as a whole, does not have "free speech" except for property owners. Unless you're on public property, behaving lawfully, such as in court, or "speaking truth" next to the post office, etc. etc. you don't have free speech. So, when people hold a good portion of their discourse through private structures, those structures seem public. The host companies seem like governments through terms of services. They see the first amendment as applying there by default.
- asdff 6y ago
  There is plenty of public speech. You are free to start your own version of AWS and host whatever you'd like on it. You are free to stand on a street corner and start reading out loud from Mein Kampf if you'd like. You are even allowed to march the streets waving a nazi or confederate flag. Private people and companies, on the other hand, are under no obligation to help further your speech.
  - jelliclesfarm 6y ago
    Awesome. Now we have established that Big Tech and social media are against free speech, we can all move on.
    - asdff 6y ago
      They aren’t against free speech, they are irrelevant to the discussion. Is a bartender kicking out a rowdy patron against free speech?
      - jelliclesfarm 6y ago

okaram 6y ago

What current discourse ? The impeachment, and a lot of the current discourse is that Mr Trump did basically yell fire in a crowded theater (he told his supporters to march to the Capitol).

okaram 6y ago

If you mean talk about if/how FB, Twitter etc should control speech on their platform, that has always been going on, and has nothing to do with the first amendment (Congress shall pass no law) I assume most internet geeks think technological restrictions are mostly futile (the internet routes around censorship), BTW.

xtracto 6y ago
Just ses how the RIAA played whack a mole from Napster onwards, then government played the same for DeCss, then the MPAA with torrents, and nowadays the government with deepweb markets. It's just a losing game that ends up affecting innocent people (like DRM in games) but theres just no way to win

pldr1234 6y ago

This is a post where the parent has already taken a very strong position/view, and is thinly veiling it in the form of a question (and not veiled very well either). Is there a way to report these types of posts? Or better yet, to have HN remove all this incessant political commentary. Perhaps I'll take the time to finally work on that custom Chrome extension project I've been meaning to tackle..

asdff 6y ago

I remember that you couldn't have nudity or profanity on TV. You couldn't say certain things on the radio. If you wanted to publish something particularly inflammatory and demeaning, the only outlet was to find some fringe press or do it yourself, because it would simply be unacceptable anywhere else. Free speech just means the government isn't going to prosecute you for saying something. That's it. Free speech doesn't mean Random House must publish your manifesto to all things awful. It also doesn't mean a private company is obligated to publish your derogatory tweet. Or for a company to host your website chock full of hateful language.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

lupire 6y ago

"Falsely yelling fire in a theater" theory was a judge's analogy for protesting the Vietnam War. The US passed the Alien and Sedition Acts centuries ago. These debates are age-old. Also, the First Amendment is less important than all the Articles of the Constitution, including the ones about the Electoral college. So by your theory (which is invalid because order of Amendment has nothing to do with relative importance, and you are a horrible person if you think free speech is more important than banning race-based slavery) peotectingt the Electoral College is more important than Free Speech