5 ms·

If you only mean that you believe in the right to speak without going to jail, and no protections of speech beyond that, then ok. I mean, I strongly disagree, b

by drdeca 6y ago

If you only mean that you believe in the right to speak without going to jail, and no protections of speech beyond that, then ok. I mean, I strongly disagree, but I acknowledge your position of not supporting protections beyond that. But you should know that that isn't what other people generally mean when they say "free speech". For example, most people would also say that freedom of speech also requires that people aren't fined money for saying things that they believe, or things like that. If by saying this you are trying to shift the public understanding of the term in a direction of such minimal applicability, I would oppose this shift.

doctor_eval 6y ago
I was being slightly hyperbolic. A proper definition of free speech - not my definition - is that it is the freedom to speak without interference _from the government_. So fines, jail time or anything else driven by the government is out. This I can agree with to a large extent. Free speech does not, and has never, meant the right to be free of consequences for your speech, or the right to speak anonymously in public, or to have your identity hidden. Free speech does not give you the God-given right to post anything you like to any service or publication. You can’t force the NYT to put your opinion on their home page and you can’t, or at least shouldn’t be able to, force Twitter to spread your lies. And, again in my opinion, if someone does say something harmful then there needs to be accountability. That means that if someone is hurt by someone else’s speech, then the victim should be able to sue or otherwise take action against the perpetrator. Here’s the problem. Sites like Twitter and others can publish anonymous hate speech while hiding behind the CDA. This means neither the anonymous asshole nor the profitable company can be touched, and this is causing huge damage to our society. The solution seems pretty simple. Anonymous speech should be the responsibility of the platform, and subject to civil action against the platform. Speech published by platforms which is not anonymous can and should be the responsibility of the individual making the claims. This simple change would force platforms to moderate all their anonymous content, instead of the current, low cost statistical methods they are obviously using today. Also, it does not mean that speech can’t be published anonymously. It just means that the service must know the details of the writer, and that the anonymity of a user can be uncloaked by a court. Note that this is how “letters to the editor” worked for a very long time. If you like your privacy, then don’t intentionally invade the privacy of others, or otherwise harm them, with your lies.
- throwaway3699 6y ago
  Free speech is two things: 1) the legal protection which you already defined and 2) a guiding principle of democracy. Cutting anonymous speech out would be just as dangerous. Same for demanding Twitter regulate "lies". If Twitter was around in the early 00s then they'd be deleting popular and dangerous conspiracy theories such as "there are no WMDs in Iraq". There can only be one solution, which is to teach the average pleb better critical thinking.
- rosmax_1337 6y ago
  Many people argue that freedom of speech "is the freedom to speak without interference _from the government_". I disagree with that, the freedom of speech is firstly a societal norm and secondly a government policy. And if I could choose only one of the two, I would much prefer it as a societal norm rather than a government policy, precisely because government is downstreams from societal norms. Ie. societal norms eventually become government policy. In my view then, freedom of speech is much more a social phenomena than a governmental phenomena. Are you able to speak about the things that matter to you, without prosecution from any entity, governmental or not? The reason why freedom of speech is important, is because we want ideas that are counter to mainstream narratives to be able to set root in society. History tells us that societies need to adapt and change over time for various reasons. And freedom of speech is the engine of that change and adaptation.
  - krapp 6y ago
    > The reason why freedom of speech is important, is because we want ideas that are counter to mainstream narratives to be able to set root in society. We want ideas that have value to take root in society, irregardless of their relationship to the mainstream. Not all ideas that are counter to mainstream narratives have positive societal value, nor do all ideas have equivalent value to all others. Alchemy does not have equivalent value to chemistry. The belief that the earth is flat is not equivalent to the belief that it is round, even if neither is perfectly accurate. The Nazis were certainly outside the mainstream, but were also wrong, and evil, and and having their ideas take root again now that they're no longer mainstream is never going to be a good idea. Marjorie Taylor Greene (to pick an extreme topical example) has the right to believe in QAnon and Jewish space lasers, but everyone else has the right to call out her racist paranoid BS, and one force of speech must inevitably consequence the other. Freedom of speech that doesn't allow the freedom to discern quality of speech isn't really freedom, that's just having society act as a dumb terminal for whatever noise comes its way.

by drdeca 6y ago

doctor_eval 6y ago

I was being slightly hyperbolic. A proper definition of free speech - not my definition - is that it is the freedom to speak without interference _from the government_. So fines, jail time or anything else driven by the government is out. This I can agree with to a large extent. Free speech does not, and has never, meant the right to be free of consequences for your speech, or the right to speak anonymously in public, or to have your identity hidden. Free speech does not give you the God-given right to post anything you like to any service or publication. You can’t force the NYT to put your opinion on their home page and you can’t, or at least shouldn’t be able to, force Twitter to spread your lies. And, again in my opinion, if someone does say something harmful then there needs to be accountability. That means that if someone is hurt by someone else’s speech, then the victim should be able to sue or otherwise take action against the perpetrator. Here’s the problem. Sites like Twitter and others can publish anonymous hate speech while hiding behind the CDA. This means neither the anonymous asshole nor the profitable company can be touched, and this is causing huge damage to our society. The solution seems pretty simple. Anonymous speech should be the responsibility of the platform, and subject to civil action against the platform. Speech published by platforms which is not anonymous can and should be the responsibility of the individual making the claims. This simple change would force platforms to moderate all their anonymous content, instead of the current, low cost statistical methods they are obviously using today. Also, it does not mean that speech can’t be published anonymously. It just means that the service must know the details of the writer, and that the anonymity of a user can be uncloaked by a court. Note that this is how “letters to the editor” worked for a very long time. If you like your privacy, then don’t intentionally invade the privacy of others, or otherwise harm them, with your lies.

throwaway3699 6y ago
Free speech is two things: 1) the legal protection which you already defined and 2) a guiding principle of democracy. Cutting anonymous speech out would be just as dangerous. Same for demanding Twitter regulate "lies". If Twitter was around in the early 00s then they'd be deleting popular and dangerous conspiracy theories such as "there are no WMDs in Iraq". There can only be one solution, which is to teach the average pleb better critical thinking.
rosmax_1337 6y ago
Many people argue that freedom of speech "is the freedom to speak without interference _from the government_". I disagree with that, the freedom of speech is firstly a societal norm and secondly a government policy. And if I could choose only one of the two, I would much prefer it as a societal norm rather than a government policy, precisely because government is downstreams from societal norms. Ie. societal norms eventually become government policy. In my view then, freedom of speech is much more a social phenomena than a governmental phenomena. Are you able to speak about the things that matter to you, without prosecution from any entity, governmental or not? The reason why freedom of speech is important, is because we want ideas that are counter to mainstream narratives to be able to set root in society. History tells us that societies need to adapt and change over time for various reasons. And freedom of speech is the engine of that change and adaptation.
- krapp 6y ago
  > The reason why freedom of speech is important, is because we want ideas that are counter to mainstream narratives to be able to set root in society. We want ideas that have value to take root in society, irregardless of their relationship to the mainstream. Not all ideas that are counter to mainstream narratives have positive societal value, nor do all ideas have equivalent value to all others. Alchemy does not have equivalent value to chemistry. The belief that the earth is flat is not equivalent to the belief that it is round, even if neither is perfectly accurate. The Nazis were certainly outside the mainstream, but were also wrong, and evil, and and having their ideas take root again now that they're no longer mainstream is never going to be a good idea. Marjorie Taylor Greene (to pick an extreme topical example) has the right to believe in QAnon and Jewish space lasers, but everyone else has the right to call out her racist paranoid BS, and one force of speech must inevitably consequence the other. Freedom of speech that doesn't allow the freedom to discern quality of speech isn't really freedom, that's just having society act as a dumb terminal for whatever noise comes its way.