4 ms·

No, the expectation of being able to say anything and not be responsible for it, is what's wrong. Say what you want, but be prepared to stand by it and take re

No, the expectation of being able to say anything and not be responsible for it, is what's wrong. Say what you want, but be prepared to stand by it and take responsibility for it, in a court of law if necessary. Free speech is a right, and thus it requires the person exercising that right to understand that it does not absolve them from being held responsible for what they say or express. Just like the 2nd amendment doesn't shield you from all possible consequences of exercising that right to bear arms. Rights are not "get out of jail free" cards.

efaref 5y ago
I'm not really sure what the amendments to the US constitution have to do with a post about British workplaces, but I think you have a very different view on "freedom of speech" than the classically liberal one that it is arguably founded upon. That's OK, of course. In the UK we don't have and have never had freedom of speech. In fact, we have some of the harshest libel laws in the world. There are very many consequences for saying or publishing things that you're not allowed to here. But this post is about people self-censoring their opinions, particularly in the workplace, for fear of repercussions, and that is something that absolutely is getting worse. Like many others I steer clear of all of these topics myself, as even though I hold "approved" opinions on them. I fear that someone may wilfully misinterpret something I say and cause me irreparable harm by going on some weird crusade to have me fired and my life ruined, as that seems to be what normally happens these days. If one has fear then one is not free.
- KozmoNau7 5y ago
  I'm not from the US either, however I wanted to frame the argument in a way that would be understandable to the majority on this site. > "But this post is about people self-censoring their opinions, particularly in the workplace, for fear of repercussions, and that is something that absolutely is getting worse. Like many others I steer clear of all of these topics myself, as even though I hold "approved" opinions on them." In a way, this gives you just a little perspective on how homosexual people have felt for millennia, in fact how anyone with a sexuality, religion, political view or any other aspect that was sufficiently divergent from the status quo have been treated for millennia. In many parts of the world, some of those things still carry death sentences, and it's not very long ago that this was also the case in our western countries. Being told that ones views are "not cool, dude" is extremely mild, and the threat of doxxing is wildly overblown, unless you are an actual political activist. And in that case, it still a lot more dangerous being an ultra-woke leftie than a white supremacist, considering the cases we've seen of violent attacks, car rammings at protests and so on. > "I fear that someone may wilfully misinterpret something I say and cause me irreparable harm by going on some weird crusade to have me fired and my life ruined, as that seems to be what normally happens these days." I'm sorry, but that is just horse manure. You hear of a small handful of cases, which are given completely overblown coverage in the media, because outrage sells. That is not an accurate representation of the world, it is a twisted media picture. It is especially bad in the UK, where the big media is overwhelmingly conservative. As someone who probably agrees with you on a number of things, being of an old-school leftist persuasion (trade unions, progressive taxation, wealth taxes, completely legalize weed, trust that people have good intentions at heart, judge people by their actions, not by where they happened to be born), and someone who interacts with a lot of different companies from all over the spectrum, I simply cannot recognize your argument that people who don't hold "woke leftist" views are discriminated against. On the contrary, there is still a undercurrent of conservative and somewhat xenophobic attitude at a lot of manual labor and otherwise "blue collar" workplaces. It has gotten a lot better, but it is still present.
  - efaref 5y ago
    You can call my fears "horse manure" if you like, but that doesn't really change the fact that I have them. Based on how I've seen some of my (now ex-)colleagues treated when they have spoken up, I don't think they are at all unfounded. And yes, people have been discriminated against for who they are, or what they believe, for a long long time. It was wrong then and it is wrong now.
- M2Ys4U 5y ago
  >In the UK we don't have and have never had freedom of speech. That's not true - we do have freedom of speech. It's just not absolute freedom of speech, which is a frankly horrible idea, because absolute rights almost always undermine other rights. (As an example, absolute freedom of speech would preclude all rights to privacy and confidentiality.) What we have is a framework of fundamental rights, most of which are "qualified rights" and must be balanced with each other. That it is a balancing act means that it's an imperfect system, for sure, but it's better not to allow the use of one right to trample over another.
  - efaref 5y ago
    In the UK we have limited freedom of expression (under S10 of the Human Rights Act 1998), which is much more narrowly defined, and even then subject to many restrictions and limitations (libel, court privilege, hate speech, and more). It doesn't really qualify as "freedom of speech" in the sense that really matters for this discussion.
    - M2Ys4U 5y ago
      >In the UK we have limited freedom of expression [...] which is much more narrowly defined There is no real distinction between freedom of speech and freedom of expression. Speech is expression, or rather it is a subset. Section 10 of the Human Rights Act 1998 is the "Power to take remedial action" by ministers if a court has issued a declaration of incompatibility. I think you mean Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which is given direct domestic legal effect by the Human Rights Act. A10 states >Everyone has the right to freedom of expression. This right shall include freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by public authority and regardless of frontiers. which I'm not sure you can claim isn't "freedom of speech". I did state earlier that it's a qualified right, and those qualifications are: >The exercise of these freedoms, since it carries with it duties and responsibilities, may be subject to such formalities, conditions, restrictions or penalties as are prescribed by law and are necessary in a democratic society, in the interests of national security, territorial integrity or public safety, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals, for the protection of the reputation or rights of others, for preventing the disclosure of information received in confidence, or for maintaining the authority and impartiality of the judiciary. but this hardly seems like it undermines freedom of speech. There are limits, but they must be "necessary in a democratic society" (which can be - and often is - the basis for a legal challenge by those who think their A10 rights have been violated) and for a defined, and limited, number of reasons. Like I also said above, if you remove (some of) these qualifications then you end up with perverse results, like undermining the right to privacy or justice itself.
arka2147483647 5y ago
Above I said: > Meaning that, Yes, you do have the right of free speach, but No, you should not be saying the wrong things. I would argue, that you do disagree with what I said. You are just providing reasons why it is acceptable for why you should not be saying the wrong things.
- KozmoNau7 5y ago
  You can say as many wrong things as you want, but you cannot expect that there will be no consequences. Those consequences range from people not wishing to associate with you anymore at the mildest end, to actual fines and jail time, if your speech can be proven to have directly incited violence (the bar for which various according to country and jurisdiction). You can't just claim that "I have no control over these words that are coming out of my mouth, and I take no responsibility for them", free speech doesn't work like that. And if your strongest argument for saying something is "I have the right to say this", then maybe reconsider whether it's actually worth saying.
  - efaref 5y ago
    If freedom of speech is so limited, does it even exist as a freedom anymore? You could say I have the "freedom to take anything I want" except I mustn't take anything that belongs to somebody else. Do I really have any freedom with that restriction in place? Personally I don't think we have freedom of speech (in the UK, certainly legally we do not). You have to be careful of what you say and who you say it to. Maybe that's OK, and free speech was a failed experiment. But to claim we have that freedom whilst restricting it thus is just wankery.
    - KozmoNau7 5y ago
      It is absolutely a freedom. The really important thing here is that your freedom does not overrule the freedom of others. It's freedom of speech, not an obligation to listen to or agree with or condone what you say. As always, if your greatest argument for saying something is that you have the right to say it, maybe reconsider what you're about to say.

efaref 5y ago

I'm not really sure what the amendments to the US constitution have to do with a post about British workplaces, but I think you have a very different view on "freedom of speech" than the classically liberal one that it is arguably founded upon. That's OK, of course. In the UK we don't have and have never had freedom of speech. In fact, we have some of the harshest libel laws in the world. There are very many consequences for saying or publishing things that you're not allowed to here. But this post is about people self-censoring their opinions, particularly in the workplace, for fear of repercussions, and that is something that absolutely is getting worse. Like many others I steer clear of all of these topics myself, as even though I hold "approved" opinions on them. I fear that someone may wilfully misinterpret something I say and cause me irreparable harm by going on some weird crusade to have me fired and my life ruined, as that seems to be what normally happens these days. If one has fear then one is not free.

KozmoNau7 5y ago
I'm not from the US either, however I wanted to frame the argument in a way that would be understandable to the majority on this site. > "But this post is about people self-censoring their opinions, particularly in the workplace, for fear of repercussions, and that is something that absolutely is getting worse. Like many others I steer clear of all of these topics myself, as even though I hold "approved" opinions on them." In a way, this gives you just a little perspective on how homosexual people have felt for millennia, in fact how anyone with a sexuality, religion, political view or any other aspect that was sufficiently divergent from the status quo have been treated for millennia. In many parts of the world, some of those things still carry death sentences, and it's not very long ago that this was also the case in our western countries. Being told that ones views are "not cool, dude" is extremely mild, and the threat of doxxing is wildly overblown, unless you are an actual political activist. And in that case, it still a lot more dangerous being an ultra-woke leftie than a white supremacist, considering the cases we've seen of violent attacks, car rammings at protests and so on. > "I fear that someone may wilfully misinterpret something I say and cause me irreparable harm by going on some weird crusade to have me fired and my life ruined, as that seems to be what normally happens these days." I'm sorry, but that is just horse manure. You hear of a small handful of cases, which are given completely overblown coverage in the media, because outrage sells. That is not an accurate representation of the world, it is a twisted media picture. It is especially bad in the UK, where the big media is overwhelmingly conservative. As someone who probably agrees with you on a number of things, being of an old-school leftist persuasion (trade unions, progressive taxation, wealth taxes, completely legalize weed, trust that people have good intentions at heart, judge people by their actions, not by where they happened to be born), and someone who interacts with a lot of different companies from all over the spectrum, I simply cannot recognize your argument that people who don't hold "woke leftist" views are discriminated against. On the contrary, there is still a undercurrent of conservative and somewhat xenophobic attitude at a lot of manual labor and otherwise "blue collar" workplaces. It has gotten a lot better, but it is still present.
- efaref 5y ago
  You can call my fears "horse manure" if you like, but that doesn't really change the fact that I have them. Based on how I've seen some of my (now ex-)colleagues treated when they have spoken up, I don't think they are at all unfounded. And yes, people have been discriminated against for who they are, or what they believe, for a long long time. It was wrong then and it is wrong now.
M2Ys4U 5y ago
>In the UK we don't have and have never had freedom of speech. That's not true - we do have freedom of speech. It's just not absolute freedom of speech, which is a frankly horrible idea, because absolute rights almost always undermine other rights. (As an example, absolute freedom of speech would preclude all rights to privacy and confidentiality.) What we have is a framework of fundamental rights, most of which are "qualified rights" and must be balanced with each other. That it is a balancing act means that it's an imperfect system, for sure, but it's better not to allow the use of one right to trample over another.
- efaref 5y ago
  In the UK we have limited freedom of expression (under S10 of the Human Rights Act 1998), which is much more narrowly defined, and even then subject to many restrictions and limitations (libel, court privilege, hate speech, and more). It doesn't really qualify as "freedom of speech" in the sense that really matters for this discussion.
  - M2Ys4U 5y ago
    >In the UK we have limited freedom of expression [...] which is much more narrowly defined There is no real distinction between freedom of speech and freedom of expression. Speech is expression, or rather it is a subset. Section 10 of the Human Rights Act 1998 is the "Power to take remedial action" by ministers if a court has issued a declaration of incompatibility. I think you mean Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which is given direct domestic legal effect by the Human Rights Act. A10 states >Everyone has the right to freedom of expression. This right shall include freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by public authority and regardless of frontiers. which I'm not sure you can claim isn't "freedom of speech". I did state earlier that it's a qualified right, and those qualifications are: >The exercise of these freedoms, since it carries with it duties and responsibilities, may be subject to such formalities, conditions, restrictions or penalties as are prescribed by law and are necessary in a democratic society, in the interests of national security, territorial integrity or public safety, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals, for the protection of the reputation or rights of others, for preventing the disclosure of information received in confidence, or for maintaining the authority and impartiality of the judiciary. but this hardly seems like it undermines freedom of speech. There are limits, but they must be "necessary in a democratic society" (which can be - and often is - the basis for a legal challenge by those who think their A10 rights have been violated) and for a defined, and limited, number of reasons. Like I also said above, if you remove (some of) these qualifications then you end up with perverse results, like undermining the right to privacy or justice itself.

arka2147483647 5y ago

Above I said: > Meaning that, Yes, you do have the right of free speach, but No, you should not be saying the wrong things. I would argue, that you do disagree with what I said. You are just providing reasons why it is acceptable for why you should not be saying the wrong things.

KozmoNau7 5y ago
You can say as many wrong things as you want, but you cannot expect that there will be no consequences. Those consequences range from people not wishing to associate with you anymore at the mildest end, to actual fines and jail time, if your speech can be proven to have directly incited violence (the bar for which various according to country and jurisdiction). You can't just claim that "I have no control over these words that are coming out of my mouth, and I take no responsibility for them", free speech doesn't work like that. And if your strongest argument for saying something is "I have the right to say this", then maybe reconsider whether it's actually worth saying.
- efaref 5y ago
  If freedom of speech is so limited, does it even exist as a freedom anymore? You could say I have the "freedom to take anything I want" except I mustn't take anything that belongs to somebody else. Do I really have any freedom with that restriction in place? Personally I don't think we have freedom of speech (in the UK, certainly legally we do not). You have to be careful of what you say and who you say it to. Maybe that's OK, and free speech was a failed experiment. But to claim we have that freedom whilst restricting it thus is just wankery.
  - KozmoNau7 5y ago
    It is absolutely a freedom. The really important thing here is that your freedom does not overrule the freedom of others. It's freedom of speech, not an obligation to listen to or agree with or condone what you say. As always, if your greatest argument for saying something is that you have the right to say it, maybe reconsider what you're about to say.