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Answers to 12 Bad Anti-Free Speech Arguments

41 points by hirundo 5y ago

waynecochran 5y ago
I find it strange that "free speech" has to be defended in the US today. This is a bedrock concept to a free country.
- dane-pgp 5y ago
  Unfortunately, for a lot of people, many principles which were previously non-negotiable have become subordinate to short-sighted tribalism. I'm not sure why that is, exactly, but a credible hypothesis might be that by living in filter bubbles, people simultaneously become less exposed to the shared humanity of their opponents, and also rewarded by their in-group for the "righteous anger" they express towards those opponents. After all, if you're sure that your opponent is going to lie or cheat or kill you, then what's so bad about lying or cheating or killing them first? It may even feel like you're de-escalating the situation if you "only" censor people who you think are going to kill (someone like) you. (Don't get me wrong, some calls to violence definitely shouldn't be spread, but I think that people are too quick to justify their censorship that way).
  - wilsocr88 5y ago
    I think it all stems from this idea that we can't be made uncomfortable ever, or we are a victim. The whole point of colleges and universities was to be confronted with some very uncomfortable ideas and to argue your position on them. This is how free societies work. But as you said, currently all of our mundane day-to-day dopamine incentives in the West are aimed at the precise inversion of that. Not a good thing.
- leephillips 5y ago
  It’s not strange. It has always been an enlightened minority who defend freedom of speech against popular sentiment, which actually opposes it. The ACLU, when it was a civil rights organization that defended freedom of speech, famously had to educate the country through the courts by defending the rights of Nazis to hold a march. Their defense was unpopular and they lost a lot of members. A minority understands that if free speech does not include protection for odious speech, it is meaningless.
  - wilsocr88 5y ago
    Yep. There is no freedom of speech unless the most batshit insane ideas can see the light, be understood truthfully, and criticized freely. And, I'd add: we need to respect the rights of the crazies to speak their mind. Yes, respect. Otherwise, you have people stuck in their crazy bubble, following only social media accounts that agree with them, and not listening to any criticisms of their points of view because everyone treats them like a horrible pariah and has never bothered to explain why their ideas are wrong, and they've never had a chance to truly argue their position (which is how you suss out what you actually believe). And what do we get when we don't let people with bad ideas speak their minds freely, argue their position, and listen to arguments from others? We get January 6th.
- UncleMeat 5y ago
  It doesn't need to be defended. Instead, the term is used as a cudgel to justify all manner of nasty behavior and demand no criticism in return.
  - tanseydavid 5y ago
    Free Speech by definition allows for criticism in return. Consider: if one wishes to justify "nasty behavior", as you call it, using the principle of Free Speech and then tries to also demand that no criticism be returned -- then this individual is clearly non-serious about Free Speech concepts.
    - UncleMeat 5y ago
      It does. Yet I've had friends harassed by "free speech advocates" for offering professional criticism of bigoted ideas. It becomes very clear that the people who have managed to plant a flag on "free speech" as a thing that needs defending are simply using it for other means.
      - wilsocr88 5y ago
        That is truly unfortunate to read. Those people are not serious about free speech; they are deeply hostile to it. If they were serious about free speech, they would welcome the criticism. In my experience, it's not the criticism that free speech advocates complain about (plenty of weak phonies do, to be fair, because they are not secure in their principles or viewpoints). In my experience, free speech advocates complain mostly about the moves of private organizations against individuals' right to free speech. The bans from the social media "public square," (suddenly more important during Covid...) or when someone gets cut off of PayPal for dubious political reasons, these things do matter. They may not be strictly "unconstitutional," or even really illegal, but they are dangerous, and they are against the ideals of a free society.
    - plorkyeran 5y ago
      People who advocate Free Speech on the internet seem to usually mean Speech Free From Criticism. The "anti-free speech" things they complain about is just other people excising their own free speech.
dane-pgp 5y ago
It would be nice to be able to refer people to a specific Answer on the list, with a short and memorable link. That way, whenever someone tries to use a "fire in a crowded theatre" or "first amendment only limits the government" argument in a debate about the principle of freedom of speech, they can become one of that day's lucky 10,000* without derailing the conversation. * https://xkcd.com/1053/ https://xkcd.com/1053/
- dane-pgp 5y ago
  It's really confusing to have one of my comments on -2 points and another on +8 in the same discussion. I don't think my beliefs are that contradictory, but maybe the people reading this discussion don't like links to XKCD (which I suppose makes sense, given the topic of the linked article).
underseacables 5y ago
Freedom to speak ones thoughts without fear of a mob attack should be absolute. Anyone who seeks to silence the speech of others is only after power, not peace.
- indymike 5y ago
  > Anyone who seeks to silence the speech of others is only after power, not peace. Freedom of speech is an important buffer that prevents violence, too. Far too often the group calling to silence some unpopular opinion doesn't realize that in taking that outlet away, all that is left is violence.
- LasEspuelas 5y ago
  What do we mean with "mob attack"? Is everyone free to respond to other's thoughts with one's own?
  - wilsocr88 5y ago
    What we mean is when groups of loud activists pile onto a wrongthinker en masse and demand that the person's life and livelihood be destroyed, or else engage in targeted harassment campaigns, all for the crime of having a different viewpoint, which of course makes them the worst possible thing.
- tootie 5y ago
  Physical attack? Yes. Universal condemnation is part of free speech too. And really, incitement to violence is a gray area.
  - wilsocr88 5y ago
    We should be extremely slow to "universally condemn" things, though. Free speech requires that universal condemnation is very difficult to reach. The reality of a free society is that we will be confronted with ideas that differ from our own. It will often be uncomfortable. To be free is a demanding thing for a sovereign citizen. The exact thing to not do is to claim that every situation is potentially worthy of universal condemnation and that we must figure out how every situation could potentially be worthy of universal condemnation. That's the opposite of living in a free society.
Traster 5y ago
To be honest, this isn’t a very good article. Take for example the fire in a crowded theatre point. The article basically just moans about the people making the argument, points out that judicial precedent has moved on since 1919, and lists people that disagree with it. Well sure, but what the article doesn’t actually do is give a good answer as to why you should be allowed to make false statements in the knowledge it will cause harm to others. It doesn’t really provide an answer at all and that’s always the case for these articles - they’re very good at providing reassurance for people who already agree, but very little else.
- AbrahamParangi 5y ago
  If you can’t make false statements, then you can’t make unpopular statements either, because in the public eye there’s no difference.
  - bb88 5y ago
    Free speech doesn't protect conspiracy to commit murder, inciting a riot, fraud, nor libel/slander.
    - AbrahamParangi 5y ago
      I am making a philosophical argument for free speech, not a legalistic one.
- AnthonyMouse 5y ago
  The "fire in a crowded theatre point" is an appeal to authority. The Supreme Court said you couldn't do that. The fact that the case that quote is from has been overturned is directly relevant. > Well sure, but what the article doesn’t actually do is give a good answer as to why you should be allowed to make false statements in the knowledge it will cause harm to others. Now you're making a different argument, and the problem with it is that without the specific example, it just becomes a fully general argument in favor of censorship. Censors always claim that whatever they want to censor is false or misleading or harmful. Who gets to decide what's true before anybody has had a chance to hear what it is? How do you build popular support for not censoring something that is true, if you're prohibited from asserting it because the censors say that it's false? The answer is that you let them say it, then you tell everybody why they're wrong. If you can prove them wrong then everybody should believe you and not them. If you can't prove them wrong then is it reasonable for you to assert that what they're saying is false?
throwaway1st 5y ago
>Assertion: The right to free speech means the government can’t arrest you for what you say; it still leaves other people free to kick you out. >Answer: No, the popular xkcd cartoon below is wrong. The First Amendment limits what the government can do, but freedom of speech is something much bigger than that. The article attempts to address a legal argument with a cultural and philosophical one. This doesn't change the law but it does lose credibility with me.
- wilsocr88 5y ago
  No, it's precisely the other way around. The XKCD comic attempts to reframe one of the most important philosophical foundations of democracy as somehow legally unsound, or otherwise completely dismissable when it comes to ideas that are in the minority. When one is in the majority, implies Randall, it is their right to take part in the suppression of minority ideas. That sort of questioning of democratic fundamentals runs directly contrary to the ideals of a free society. The whole point of free speech is to allow for fringe, crazy, bad ideas, so that we can put them in the light and suss them out. Without that, there is darkness, and we all know what happens to democracy in darkness.
pharmakom 5y ago
The article didn’t directly tackle what I consider two of the muddiest areas for free speech: 1. Someone is spreading adult / controversial / extremist material to children. Should that be protected by free speech and how do we decide? 2. Someone with a large platform and millions of followers is making speeches that will inspire an extreme subset of their followers to commit violence and other crimes, but the person is not committing any crimes themselves. Should they be protected by free speech? Where do the limits lie?
- mythrwy 5y ago
  #2: There are laws against incitement to violence already. But also there are people who bend this to claim anything they don't care for "could result in violence". To me the line seems fairly clear (if we are fair). That something "could result in violence" doesn't mean the speech is direct incitement to violence, and it should be protected, at least in the U.S.
bernulli 5y ago
This is a weird article, as others pointed out. I found the part about hate speech and intolerance particularly nonsensical: (1) Western Europe has (more? stricter?) laws against hate speech than the U.S. (2) There are more cases of hate crime (i.e. violations of these stricter laws) in Europe. (3) Therefore, there is more intolerance in Europe than in the U.S. It's like saying no one was ever charged in the UK for driving on the left side of the road, therefore UK drivers are superior.
- wilsocr88 5y ago
  The point of the bit about Western Europe was to point out that hate crime laws in practice achieve the exact opposite of their intended goal: They make societies more bigoted. The US, which doesn't legislate against hate speech, has less hate crime than countries that do. The point is to figure out what works, not "keep trying what we expected to work, but it didn't, but we've already sunken the cost of believing it, so we might as well keep trying."
  - bernulli 5y ago
    I understand what the author is claiming. What I am saying is that the argument does not show that at all: if, for the same action, you will be charged in country A (because of stricter hate crime laws) but not in country B, then, obviously, there will be more charges brought against people for violating this in country A than in country B (because it's not a crime in country B!). It's like comparing two countries about their drug laws. Clearly, when certain drugs are illegal in country A but not in country B, people will only be charged because of drug use in country A. But this does not mean that there is less drug use in country B - for all we know, everyone in country B could be using that drug 24/7 - it's just not a violation of the law, and thus does not lead to more charges.

41 points by hirundo 5y ago

waynecochran 5y ago

I find it strange that "free speech" has to be defended in the US today. This is a bedrock concept to a free country.

dane-pgp 5y ago
Unfortunately, for a lot of people, many principles which were previously non-negotiable have become subordinate to short-sighted tribalism. I'm not sure why that is, exactly, but a credible hypothesis might be that by living in filter bubbles, people simultaneously become less exposed to the shared humanity of their opponents, and also rewarded by their in-group for the "righteous anger" they express towards those opponents. After all, if you're sure that your opponent is going to lie or cheat or kill you, then what's so bad about lying or cheating or killing them first? It may even feel like you're de-escalating the situation if you "only" censor people who you think are going to kill (someone like) you. (Don't get me wrong, some calls to violence definitely shouldn't be spread, but I think that people are too quick to justify their censorship that way).
- wilsocr88 5y ago
  I think it all stems from this idea that we can't be made uncomfortable ever, or we are a victim. The whole point of colleges and universities was to be confronted with some very uncomfortable ideas and to argue your position on them. This is how free societies work. But as you said, currently all of our mundane day-to-day dopamine incentives in the West are aimed at the precise inversion of that. Not a good thing.
leephillips 5y ago
It’s not strange. It has always been an enlightened minority who defend freedom of speech against popular sentiment, which actually opposes it. The ACLU, when it was a civil rights organization that defended freedom of speech, famously had to educate the country through the courts by defending the rights of Nazis to hold a march. Their defense was unpopular and they lost a lot of members. A minority understands that if free speech does not include protection for odious speech, it is meaningless.
- wilsocr88 5y ago
  Yep. There is no freedom of speech unless the most batshit insane ideas can see the light, be understood truthfully, and criticized freely. And, I'd add: we need to respect the rights of the crazies to speak their mind. Yes, respect. Otherwise, you have people stuck in their crazy bubble, following only social media accounts that agree with them, and not listening to any criticisms of their points of view because everyone treats them like a horrible pariah and has never bothered to explain why their ideas are wrong, and they've never had a chance to truly argue their position (which is how you suss out what you actually believe). And what do we get when we don't let people with bad ideas speak their minds freely, argue their position, and listen to arguments from others? We get January 6th.
UncleMeat 5y ago
It doesn't need to be defended. Instead, the term is used as a cudgel to justify all manner of nasty behavior and demand no criticism in return.
- tanseydavid 5y ago
  Free Speech by definition allows for criticism in return. Consider: if one wishes to justify "nasty behavior", as you call it, using the principle of Free Speech and then tries to also demand that no criticism be returned -- then this individual is clearly non-serious about Free Speech concepts.
  - UncleMeat 5y ago
    It does. Yet I've had friends harassed by "free speech advocates" for offering professional criticism of bigoted ideas. It becomes very clear that the people who have managed to plant a flag on "free speech" as a thing that needs defending are simply using it for other means.
    - wilsocr88 5y ago
      That is truly unfortunate to read. Those people are not serious about free speech; they are deeply hostile to it. If they were serious about free speech, they would welcome the criticism. In my experience, it's not the criticism that free speech advocates complain about (plenty of weak phonies do, to be fair, because they are not secure in their principles or viewpoints). In my experience, free speech advocates complain mostly about the moves of private organizations against individuals' right to free speech. The bans from the social media "public square," (suddenly more important during Covid...) or when someone gets cut off of PayPal for dubious political reasons, these things do matter. They may not be strictly "unconstitutional," or even really illegal, but they are dangerous, and they are against the ideals of a free society.
  - plorkyeran 5y ago
    People who advocate Free Speech on the internet seem to usually mean Speech Free From Criticism. The "anti-free speech" things they complain about is just other people excising their own free speech.

dane-pgp 5y ago

It would be nice to be able to refer people to a specific Answer on the list, with a short and memorable link. That way, whenever someone tries to use a "fire in a crowded theatre" or "first amendment only limits the government" argument in a debate about the principle of freedom of speech, they can become one of that day's lucky 10,000* without derailing the conversation. * https://xkcd.com/1053/ https://xkcd.com/1053/

dane-pgp 5y ago
It's really confusing to have one of my comments on -2 points and another on +8 in the same discussion. I don't think my beliefs are that contradictory, but maybe the people reading this discussion don't like links to XKCD (which I suppose makes sense, given the topic of the linked article).

underseacables 5y ago

Freedom to speak ones thoughts without fear of a mob attack should be absolute. Anyone who seeks to silence the speech of others is only after power, not peace.

indymike 5y ago
> Anyone who seeks to silence the speech of others is only after power, not peace. Freedom of speech is an important buffer that prevents violence, too. Far too often the group calling to silence some unpopular opinion doesn't realize that in taking that outlet away, all that is left is violence.
LasEspuelas 5y ago
What do we mean with "mob attack"? Is everyone free to respond to other's thoughts with one's own?
- wilsocr88 5y ago
  What we mean is when groups of loud activists pile onto a wrongthinker en masse and demand that the person's life and livelihood be destroyed, or else engage in targeted harassment campaigns, all for the crime of having a different viewpoint, which of course makes them the worst possible thing.
tootie 5y ago
Physical attack? Yes. Universal condemnation is part of free speech too. And really, incitement to violence is a gray area.
- wilsocr88 5y ago
  We should be extremely slow to "universally condemn" things, though. Free speech requires that universal condemnation is very difficult to reach. The reality of a free society is that we will be confronted with ideas that differ from our own. It will often be uncomfortable. To be free is a demanding thing for a sovereign citizen. The exact thing to not do is to claim that every situation is potentially worthy of universal condemnation and that we must figure out how every situation could potentially be worthy of universal condemnation. That's the opposite of living in a free society.

Traster 5y ago

To be honest, this isn’t a very good article. Take for example the fire in a crowded theatre point. The article basically just moans about the people making the argument, points out that judicial precedent has moved on since 1919, and lists people that disagree with it. Well sure, but what the article doesn’t actually do is give a good answer as to why you should be allowed to make false statements in the knowledge it will cause harm to others. It doesn’t really provide an answer at all and that’s always the case for these articles - they’re very good at providing reassurance for people who already agree, but very little else.

AbrahamParangi 5y ago
If you can’t make false statements, then you can’t make unpopular statements either, because in the public eye there’s no difference.
- bb88 5y ago
  Free speech doesn't protect conspiracy to commit murder, inciting a riot, fraud, nor libel/slander.
  - AbrahamParangi 5y ago
    I am making a philosophical argument for free speech, not a legalistic one.
AnthonyMouse 5y ago
The "fire in a crowded theatre point" is an appeal to authority. The Supreme Court said you couldn't do that. The fact that the case that quote is from has been overturned is directly relevant. > Well sure, but what the article doesn’t actually do is give a good answer as to why you should be allowed to make false statements in the knowledge it will cause harm to others. Now you're making a different argument, and the problem with it is that without the specific example, it just becomes a fully general argument in favor of censorship. Censors always claim that whatever they want to censor is false or misleading or harmful. Who gets to decide what's true before anybody has had a chance to hear what it is? How do you build popular support for not censoring something that is true, if you're prohibited from asserting it because the censors say that it's false? The answer is that you let them say it, then you tell everybody why they're wrong. If you can prove them wrong then everybody should believe you and not them. If you can't prove them wrong then is it reasonable for you to assert that what they're saying is false?

throwaway1st 5y ago

>Assertion: The right to free speech means the government can’t arrest you for what you say; it still leaves other people free to kick you out. >Answer: No, the popular xkcd cartoon below is wrong. The First Amendment limits what the government can do, but freedom of speech is something much bigger than that. The article attempts to address a legal argument with a cultural and philosophical one. This doesn't change the law but it does lose credibility with me.

wilsocr88 5y ago
No, it's precisely the other way around. The XKCD comic attempts to reframe one of the most important philosophical foundations of democracy as somehow legally unsound, or otherwise completely dismissable when it comes to ideas that are in the minority. When one is in the majority, implies Randall, it is their right to take part in the suppression of minority ideas. That sort of questioning of democratic fundamentals runs directly contrary to the ideals of a free society. The whole point of free speech is to allow for fringe, crazy, bad ideas, so that we can put them in the light and suss them out. Without that, there is darkness, and we all know what happens to democracy in darkness.

pharmakom 5y ago

The article didn’t directly tackle what I consider two of the muddiest areas for free speech: 1. Someone is spreading adult / controversial / extremist material to children. Should that be protected by free speech and how do we decide? 2. Someone with a large platform and millions of followers is making speeches that will inspire an extreme subset of their followers to commit violence and other crimes, but the person is not committing any crimes themselves. Should they be protected by free speech? Where do the limits lie?

mythrwy 5y ago
#2: There are laws against incitement to violence already. But also there are people who bend this to claim anything they don't care for "could result in violence". To me the line seems fairly clear (if we are fair). That something "could result in violence" doesn't mean the speech is direct incitement to violence, and it should be protected, at least in the U.S.

bernulli 5y ago

This is a weird article, as others pointed out. I found the part about hate speech and intolerance particularly nonsensical: (1) Western Europe has (more? stricter?) laws against hate speech than the U.S. (2) There are more cases of hate crime (i.e. violations of these stricter laws) in Europe. (3) Therefore, there is more intolerance in Europe than in the U.S. It's like saying no one was ever charged in the UK for driving on the left side of the road, therefore UK drivers are superior.

wilsocr88 5y ago
The point of the bit about Western Europe was to point out that hate crime laws in practice achieve the exact opposite of their intended goal: They make societies more bigoted. The US, which doesn't legislate against hate speech, has less hate crime than countries that do. The point is to figure out what works, not "keep trying what we expected to work, but it didn't, but we've already sunken the cost of believing it, so we might as well keep trying."
- bernulli 5y ago
  I understand what the author is claiming. What I am saying is that the argument does not show that at all: if, for the same action, you will be charged in country A (because of stricter hate crime laws) but not in country B, then, obviously, there will be more charges brought against people for violating this in country A than in country B (because it's not a crime in country B!). It's like comparing two countries about their drug laws. Clearly, when certain drugs are illegal in country A but not in country B, people will only be charged because of drug use in country A. But this does not mean that there is less drug use in country B - for all we know, everyone in country B could be using that drug 24/7 - it's just not a violation of the law, and thus does not lead to more charges.