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"If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear." ― George Orwell

beefield 5y ago
Does that also apply to outright lies, threats and defamation in mass social media - assuming I do not want to hear those? And, am I obliged to listen and/or give a thoughtful response to anything I do not want to hear?
- zanethomas 5y ago
  Is that a rhetorical question?
- throwawayboise 5y ago
  Credible threats and defamation are legally defined and can have criminal or civil consequences. Lies, yes. People are free to utter them. Nobody is obliged to listen, or let them go without a response, as may be appropriate.
  - BugsJustFindMe 5y ago
    > Credible threats and defamation are legally defined and can have criminal or civil consequences. Lies, yes. People are free to utter them. Credible threats and defamation are legally defined and have criminal or civil consequences because we recognize that they overtly cause harm. Fraud too. What in your mind is the fundamental difference between causing harm by defamation, which is literally just lying in a particular context, and causing overt harm by other kinds of lying? In order to credibly differentiate them, saying that one is ok and the other is not ok, we must have some distinguishing essential characteristic. Significantly broader categories of lying definitely and overtly cause harm, so what to your mind brings a moral imperative to allow one but not the other?
    - stale2002 5y ago
      > we must have some distinguishing fundamental characteristic I think our court system does a good job of defining this already. Our court system is extremely conservative regarding the types of speech that it allows the government to punish people for. If you disagree, you are going to have to repeal the 1st amendment, I guess.
      - BugsJustFindMe 5y ago
        > I think our court system does a good job of defining this already. I'm not sure that it does. Short of "I know it when I see it" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_know_it_when_I_see_it https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_know_it_when_I_see_it) what definitions of the essential characteristic of good speech vs bad speech do we actually have if not overtly causing harm? > If you disagree, you are going to have to repeal the 1st amendment, I guess. The 1st amendment wasn't suddenly repealed when we got consumer protection laws, so I don't think so.
        stale2002 5y ago
        > what definitions do we actually have? By definitions, I am simply referring to how courts have ruled in the past on this stuff. Which is to put very strict limits on what the government can do. > The 1st amendment wasn't suddenly repealed The courts have traditionally ruled pretty darn strictly on what the government is allowed to do. You should compared the supreme court precedents that we have in the US, to other countries, and you will see just how much more strict the US is, regarding what the government can ban. So yes, based on how strict courts have been in the past, if you want to redefine how speech laws work in the US, you are going to have an uphill battle.
        BugsJustFindMe 5y ago
        > Which is to put very strict limits on what the government can do. Based on what, though? What specific essential characteristics define the cases where it is deemed acceptable to restrict speech and how do the same exact criteria not also apply to many other scenarios as well? Restrictable speech either has a clear essential nature or it doesn't, so one of three things must be true: 1) No such essential characteristic exists, which means that our regulations are applied arbitrarily. 2) Some essential characteristic does exist, but we just look the other way sometimes, which similarly means that our regulations are applied arbitrarily. 3) Some essential characteristic does exist that is actually applied everywhere that somehow morally differentiates "fraud" from "deception with intent". I don't see truth in 1 or 3, so I think we must be doing 2.
- Andrew_nenakhov 5y ago
  The leak of of the "China" virus from the Wuhan lab was an outright lie just one year ago. Today it is a viable theory investigated under orders of the sitting president. Characterstically, Facebook and other media companies didn't suffer any consequences for suppressing public discussion on this matter. (I don't hold any view about this theory. Comment is about absurdity of the idea of claiming that something is an outright lie, and also about hypocrisy of a so-called "fact-checkers")
  - edanm 5y ago
    > The leak of of the "China" virus from the Wuhan lab was an outright lie just one year ago. Was it? I remember hearing plenty about the theory for a while. Sure, a lot of it (if not most) was saying that the theory is wrong - but not that it was a lie or anything, just giving evidence against. (And to be clear, saying a year ago that it is for sure a leak was probably really a lie - just as saying it now, cause afaik there is no conclusive evidence either way).
    - Akronymus 5y ago
      You (in the plura) saying that it may have come from the lab about a year ago would likely have led to being silenced or banned for it because of "misinformation". I personally suspect that was at least in part motivated by the then president being a proponent of the theory.
      - Andrew_nenakhov 5y ago
        > I personally suspect that was at least in part motivated by the then president being a proponent of the theory. Umm, to put it mildly, that was beyond obvious.
- listenallyall 5y ago
  Typically, labelling something as a "lie" is a bigger un-truth than the actual thing being labelled. Very few comments or opinions are wholly untrue end-to-end. Most things have some kernel of truth... perhaps there are unfounded assumptions, exaggerations, selective interpretation, etc. The person labelling something as a "lie" is usually doing so in order to outright dismiss some uncomfortably partial truth without actually having to prove it's wrong in its entirety.
  - croon 5y ago
    So, Trump's lies about a rigged election. I'm labeling it a lie because it is. How am I a bigger liar? I'm open to hearing any explanation you have, as long as you're open to hearing my rebuttals. Your generalization is a bad one, not because it has exceptions, but because it likely has as many as confirmations.
    - listenallyall 5y ago
      Please state exactly what the lies are. That the election was rigged? Are you claiming that not a single district in a single state was compromised in any way? I'd like to see your proof. My point is not that Trump is correct... but just like I said, there are likely some kernels of truth in the statement, while you labelling it a lie is a shortcut to dismissing his entire argument without showing any proof yourself.
      - croon 5y ago
        You're asking me to prove a negative. If there were any grounds for the claim, it wouldn't be a lie, but there aren't. The courts have settled it, election officials of both parties have settled it, and frankly basic understanding of the election system has settled it. I'md dismissing his entire argument because he doesn't have one outside of delusions. So I'll say it again, if you give me any substantive grounds for the lie, I can explain how it's wrong.
        listenallyall 5y ago
- robbedpeter 5y ago
  You're obliged by dint of living within the same megatribe as the rest of us assholes. You're obliged to think for yourself, because the question free speech always, inevitably boils down to is this: who decides the propriety of speech? And the answer is that, because of human fallibility and malice and corruption, the content of speech must be left to the individual. The more you constrain speech, the more you restrict a society's ability to self correct. Censorship concentrates state power and should always be carefully exercised and limited to an absolute minimum. It is a tool that has never been exercised by a government or institution for the betterment of a society. It has been universally corrupted and used for authoritarian control throughout history. Trusting modern corporations to somehow competently manage such a historically treacherous and corruptible means of social manipulation is naive at best. So yeah, that means your signal to noise ratio is gonna have to be lower than you'd prefer, and you're going to have to trust yourself and others in society to muddle through. It's the least bad because it doesn't preclude intellectual and ethical advances via morals and tastes of the day. Strangely enough, the more liberal and unconstrained speech is, the better quality of life gets for that society. The clearest example of this is the abolitionist movement that led to the end of slavery. If the US had exercised censorship and projected the majority views as the filter of appropriate speech, history may have gone much differently. Instead, loud people made annoying speeches in public that offended and provoked society to address the problem. If the ability to overcome great evils like that means that society has to put up with qanon, anti vaxxers, and flat earth dweebs, that is a price we should be happy to pay.
- xupybd 5y ago
  You don't have to listen to anyone. You should be able to make that choice without prevent someone else the right to free speech. No one has the right to force to you to listen. Typically the the limits on free speech are base on the injury they cause another. If you lie about someone and it causes you harm you can sue them. If someone harasses you you can sue them.
smitty1e 5y ago
Sadly, 1984 seems more guidebook than warning in our day.
overeater 5y ago
How strongly does this hold in cases where the speech is actually effective? I'm genuinely interested in a discussion without taking a side, because I feel like when people advocate for free speech, they are mainly thinking about unpopular unconvincing speech. Say, someone with a new brand of Nazi-ism is actually converting most of the people they talk to, using a combination of half-truths? Or even what if they are converting people by using celebrity endorsements and charismatic language? So no misinformation, but rather salient anecdotes, facts, and science? What if someone's speech is effective at making people afraid of exercising opposing speech? What if someone's speech convinces people to attack the capitol? Maybe they don't plan the attack itself, and it's merely implied that the state of the world is completely unfair in a way that only a revolution and changing of constitutional rights, could a better world be restored?
- caslon 5y ago
  Firm believer that private companies should be able to censor whatever they want here! > What if someone's speech is effective at making people afraid of exercising opposing speech? What if someone's speech convinces people to attack the capitol? Maybe they don't plan the attack itself, and it's merely implied that the state of the world is completely unfair in a way that only a revolution and changing of constitutional rights, could a better world be restored? The government should not be censoring this. Private companies, as always, should feel free to censor what they want, regardless of positions.
  - overeater 5y ago
    Thanks for that thought. So what if we're back pre-WWII, and people were on the public streets giving speeches about joining the Nazi party? You'd support their right to spread their message, knowing what would happen? And I'm really trying to get at the point that this speech is actually effective. Not sure why people are downvoting, because I don't think this has been discussed before.
    - ryanschneider 5y ago
      Painfully, yes, being pro-Nazi in the run up to WW2 was entirely legal: https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2019/02/20/695941323/when-nazis-took-manhattan https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2019/02/20/695941323... As much as I deplore their views I don’t think they should be legally barred from expressing them. Of course MSG has every right to decline hosting the above event, but the government shouldn’t be the arbiter of who can say what when in public.
pjc50 5y ago
The problem is more serious when it's things that people desperately do want to hear but turn out not to be true.
neonate 5y ago
That's from the unpublished preface to Animal Farm (https://quoteinvestigator.com/2020/07/06/hear-liberty/ https://quoteinvestigator.com/2020/07/06/hear-liberty/), in which Orwell warned his British readers not to be too pleased with his satire of the Soviets: https://orwell.ru/library/novels/Animal_Farm/english/efp_go https://orwell.ru/library/novels/Animal_Farm/english/efp_go. It was omitted from the novel under ironic circumstances (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_Farm#Preface https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_Farm#Preface - "For reasons unknown, no preface was supplied, and the page numbers had to be renumbered at the last minute") and only rediscovered in 1971. It is Chomsky's favorite Orwell piece, one he mentions all the time (e.g. https://chomsky.info/20101010_2/ https://chomsky.info/20101010_2/) and has probably done the most to popularize. https://www.google.com/search?q=chomsky+animal+farm+preface https://www.google.com/search?q=chomsky+animal+farm+preface
jollybean 5y ago
So what we 'need to hear' is academics calling each other the n-word? Or the 'c-word'? This is a misapropriation of Orwell. Why do people have difficulty with the difference between 'slurs' and 'ideas'? And the difference between 'civil rights' and 'private organizations'? -> An academic, talking about a 'challenging idea' maybe using data points that challenge public norms or 'trigger' people - should be allowed to do so. Probably, using a word - any word - to talk about that word - or in historical context, said by a character in creative expression - should be fine. -> But using racist slurs against other people in civil discourse is totally inappropriate. If I called a co-worker a 'negro' or 'slut' I would expect to be fired. And neither of those things have to do with Free Speech. If you're quoting Orwell, do it in the right moments, because the more oppressive types will point out that using the Orwell defence in these scenarios is literally tantamount to supporting intellectuals calling each other the n-word in public, which is plain rude. Then they can discretid the entire range of people concerned about 'Free Speech' as just irrelevant radicals. When media companies, governments, corps and universities are banning people for having ideas they don't like (or saying 'verbotten words' even in a legitimate context) then you trot out Orwell and issues of Freedom of Expression.
- shkkmo 5y ago
  > using the Orwell defence in these scenarios is literally tantamount to supporting intellectuals calling each other the n-word in public Please explain how this could be "literally tantamount"? I don't understand that phrase or how this statement could be true.
  - jollybean 5y ago
    The point is very clear and that someone is using Orwell to defend academics calling each other slurs in genteel settings. Obviously, that has nothing to do with Orwell, or even 'Free Speech'. As for 'literally tantamount' - the phrasing is poor, and would work better with only one of the two words, probably better just 'tantamount' or frankly neither. But it's completely moot. It doesn't change the fairly obvious implication of the statement. Free Speech is important, Orwell is important - but neither have anything to do with arbitrary ad-hominem slander among intellectuals in public. The author of the article is effectively making a personal plea, not really an intellectual one. Really what he's saying is 'I'm not that offended, don't dump this woman because she said something really raw'. Even if you remove the slur, the a statement such as "People think you're an idiot" is just terrible, playground rhetoric. Why would a University want to work with someone who makes arguments such as that that wouldn't even work well on Reddit? Use Orwell for where it was meant to be used.
lamontcg 5y ago
So what about a barrage of death and rape threats to women who dare to make youtube videos that are critical of sexism in video games? What about the racial abuse hurled over twitter at the black soccer players in the Euros who missed their pens? If you argue that people need to just suck that up, then you'll find that most people won't buy what you're selling. We're going to see freedom of speech curtailed because of problems like this where people won't self-regulate their bigotry at all. And I don't think its a good thing and you don't have to convince me that after they're done with the bigots that they'll come after the socialists. There needs to be a better argument than Absolutists-vs-Censorship though because I'm pretty sure censorship is gonna win that one.

Does that also apply to outright lies, threats and defamation in mass social media - assuming I do not want to hear those? And, am I obliged to listen and/or give a thoughtful response to anything I do not want to hear?

zanethomas 5y ago
Is that a rhetorical question?
throwawayboise 5y ago
Credible threats and defamation are legally defined and can have criminal or civil consequences. Lies, yes. People are free to utter them. Nobody is obliged to listen, or let them go without a response, as may be appropriate.
- BugsJustFindMe 5y ago
  > Credible threats and defamation are legally defined and can have criminal or civil consequences. Lies, yes. People are free to utter them. Credible threats and defamation are legally defined and have criminal or civil consequences because we recognize that they overtly cause harm. Fraud too. What in your mind is the fundamental difference between causing harm by defamation, which is literally just lying in a particular context, and causing overt harm by other kinds of lying? In order to credibly differentiate them, saying that one is ok and the other is not ok, we must have some distinguishing essential characteristic. Significantly broader categories of lying definitely and overtly cause harm, so what to your mind brings a moral imperative to allow one but not the other?
  - stale2002 5y ago
    > we must have some distinguishing fundamental characteristic I think our court system does a good job of defining this already. Our court system is extremely conservative regarding the types of speech that it allows the government to punish people for. If you disagree, you are going to have to repeal the 1st amendment, I guess.
    - BugsJustFindMe 5y ago
      > I think our court system does a good job of defining this already. I'm not sure that it does. Short of "I know it when I see it" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_know_it_when_I_see_it https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_know_it_when_I_see_it) what definitions of the essential characteristic of good speech vs bad speech do we actually have if not overtly causing harm? > If you disagree, you are going to have to repeal the 1st amendment, I guess. The 1st amendment wasn't suddenly repealed when we got consumer protection laws, so I don't think so.
      - stale2002 5y ago
        > what definitions do we actually have? By definitions, I am simply referring to how courts have ruled in the past on this stuff. Which is to put very strict limits on what the government can do. > The 1st amendment wasn't suddenly repealed The courts have traditionally ruled pretty darn strictly on what the government is allowed to do. You should compared the supreme court precedents that we have in the US, to other countries, and you will see just how much more strict the US is, regarding what the government can ban. So yes, based on how strict courts have been in the past, if you want to redefine how speech laws work in the US, you are going to have an uphill battle.
        BugsJustFindMe 5y ago
        > Which is to put very strict limits on what the government can do. Based on what, though? What specific essential characteristics define the cases where it is deemed acceptable to restrict speech and how do the same exact criteria not also apply to many other scenarios as well? Restrictable speech either has a clear essential nature or it doesn't, so one of three things must be true: 1) No such essential characteristic exists, which means that our regulations are applied arbitrarily. 2) Some essential characteristic does exist, but we just look the other way sometimes, which similarly means that our regulations are applied arbitrarily. 3) Some essential characteristic does exist that is actually applied everywhere that somehow morally differentiates "fraud" from "deception with intent". I don't see truth in 1 or 3, so I think we must be doing 2.
Andrew_nenakhov 5y ago
The leak of of the "China" virus from the Wuhan lab was an outright lie just one year ago. Today it is a viable theory investigated under orders of the sitting president. Characterstically, Facebook and other media companies didn't suffer any consequences for suppressing public discussion on this matter. (I don't hold any view about this theory. Comment is about absurdity of the idea of claiming that something is an outright lie, and also about hypocrisy of a so-called "fact-checkers")
- edanm 5y ago
  > The leak of of the "China" virus from the Wuhan lab was an outright lie just one year ago. Was it? I remember hearing plenty about the theory for a while. Sure, a lot of it (if not most) was saying that the theory is wrong - but not that it was a lie or anything, just giving evidence against. (And to be clear, saying a year ago that it is for sure a leak was probably really a lie - just as saying it now, cause afaik there is no conclusive evidence either way).
  - Akronymus 5y ago
    You (in the plura) saying that it may have come from the lab about a year ago would likely have led to being silenced or banned for it because of "misinformation". I personally suspect that was at least in part motivated by the then president being a proponent of the theory.
    - Andrew_nenakhov 5y ago
      > I personally suspect that was at least in part motivated by the then president being a proponent of the theory. Umm, to put it mildly, that was beyond obvious.
listenallyall 5y ago
Typically, labelling something as a "lie" is a bigger un-truth than the actual thing being labelled. Very few comments or opinions are wholly untrue end-to-end. Most things have some kernel of truth... perhaps there are unfounded assumptions, exaggerations, selective interpretation, etc. The person labelling something as a "lie" is usually doing so in order to outright dismiss some uncomfortably partial truth without actually having to prove it's wrong in its entirety.
- croon 5y ago
  So, Trump's lies about a rigged election. I'm labeling it a lie because it is. How am I a bigger liar? I'm open to hearing any explanation you have, as long as you're open to hearing my rebuttals. Your generalization is a bad one, not because it has exceptions, but because it likely has as many as confirmations.
  - listenallyall 5y ago
    Please state exactly what the lies are. That the election was rigged? Are you claiming that not a single district in a single state was compromised in any way? I'd like to see your proof. My point is not that Trump is correct... but just like I said, there are likely some kernels of truth in the statement, while you labelling it a lie is a shortcut to dismissing his entire argument without showing any proof yourself.
    - croon 5y ago
      You're asking me to prove a negative. If there were any grounds for the claim, it wouldn't be a lie, but there aren't. The courts have settled it, election officials of both parties have settled it, and frankly basic understanding of the election system has settled it. I'md dismissing his entire argument because he doesn't have one outside of delusions. So I'll say it again, if you give me any substantive grounds for the lie, I can explain how it's wrong.
      - listenallyall 5y ago
robbedpeter 5y ago
You're obliged by dint of living within the same megatribe as the rest of us assholes. You're obliged to think for yourself, because the question free speech always, inevitably boils down to is this: who decides the propriety of speech? And the answer is that, because of human fallibility and malice and corruption, the content of speech must be left to the individual. The more you constrain speech, the more you restrict a society's ability to self correct. Censorship concentrates state power and should always be carefully exercised and limited to an absolute minimum. It is a tool that has never been exercised by a government or institution for the betterment of a society. It has been universally corrupted and used for authoritarian control throughout history. Trusting modern corporations to somehow competently manage such a historically treacherous and corruptible means of social manipulation is naive at best. So yeah, that means your signal to noise ratio is gonna have to be lower than you'd prefer, and you're going to have to trust yourself and others in society to muddle through. It's the least bad because it doesn't preclude intellectual and ethical advances via morals and tastes of the day. Strangely enough, the more liberal and unconstrained speech is, the better quality of life gets for that society. The clearest example of this is the abolitionist movement that led to the end of slavery. If the US had exercised censorship and projected the majority views as the filter of appropriate speech, history may have gone much differently. Instead, loud people made annoying speeches in public that offended and provoked society to address the problem. If the ability to overcome great evils like that means that society has to put up with qanon, anti vaxxers, and flat earth dweebs, that is a price we should be happy to pay.
xupybd 5y ago
You don't have to listen to anyone. You should be able to make that choice without prevent someone else the right to free speech. No one has the right to force to you to listen. Typically the the limits on free speech are base on the injury they cause another. If you lie about someone and it causes you harm you can sue them. If someone harasses you you can sue them.

smitty1e 5y ago

Sadly, 1984 seems more guidebook than warning in our day.

overeater 5y ago

How strongly does this hold in cases where the speech is actually effective? I'm genuinely interested in a discussion without taking a side, because I feel like when people advocate for free speech, they are mainly thinking about unpopular unconvincing speech. Say, someone with a new brand of Nazi-ism is actually converting most of the people they talk to, using a combination of half-truths? Or even what if they are converting people by using celebrity endorsements and charismatic language? So no misinformation, but rather salient anecdotes, facts, and science? What if someone's speech is effective at making people afraid of exercising opposing speech? What if someone's speech convinces people to attack the capitol? Maybe they don't plan the attack itself, and it's merely implied that the state of the world is completely unfair in a way that only a revolution and changing of constitutional rights, could a better world be restored?

caslon 5y ago
Firm believer that private companies should be able to censor whatever they want here! > What if someone's speech is effective at making people afraid of exercising opposing speech? What if someone's speech convinces people to attack the capitol? Maybe they don't plan the attack itself, and it's merely implied that the state of the world is completely unfair in a way that only a revolution and changing of constitutional rights, could a better world be restored? The government should not be censoring this. Private companies, as always, should feel free to censor what they want, regardless of positions.
- overeater 5y ago
  Thanks for that thought. So what if we're back pre-WWII, and people were on the public streets giving speeches about joining the Nazi party? You'd support their right to spread their message, knowing what would happen? And I'm really trying to get at the point that this speech is actually effective. Not sure why people are downvoting, because I don't think this has been discussed before.
  - ryanschneider 5y ago
    Painfully, yes, being pro-Nazi in the run up to WW2 was entirely legal: https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2019/02/20/695941323/when-nazis-took-manhattan https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2019/02/20/695941323... As much as I deplore their views I don’t think they should be legally barred from expressing them. Of course MSG has every right to decline hosting the above event, but the government shouldn’t be the arbiter of who can say what when in public.

pjc50 5y ago

The problem is more serious when it's things that people desperately do want to hear but turn out not to be true.

neonate 5y ago

That's from the unpublished preface to Animal Farm (https://quoteinvestigator.com/2020/07/06/hear-liberty/ https://quoteinvestigator.com/2020/07/06/hear-liberty/), in which Orwell warned his British readers not to be too pleased with his satire of the Soviets: https://orwell.ru/library/novels/Animal_Farm/english/efp_go https://orwell.ru/library/novels/Animal_Farm/english/efp_go. It was omitted from the novel under ironic circumstances (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_Farm#Preface https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_Farm#Preface - "For reasons unknown, no preface was supplied, and the page numbers had to be renumbered at the last minute") and only rediscovered in 1971. It is Chomsky's favorite Orwell piece, one he mentions all the time (e.g. https://chomsky.info/20101010_2/ https://chomsky.info/20101010_2/) and has probably done the most to popularize. https://www.google.com/search?q=chomsky+animal+farm+preface https://www.google.com/search?q=chomsky+animal+farm+preface

jollybean 5y ago

So what we 'need to hear' is academics calling each other the n-word? Or the 'c-word'? This is a misapropriation of Orwell. Why do people have difficulty with the difference between 'slurs' and 'ideas'? And the difference between 'civil rights' and 'private organizations'? -> An academic, talking about a 'challenging idea' maybe using data points that challenge public norms or 'trigger' people - should be allowed to do so. Probably, using a word - any word - to talk about that word - or in historical context, said by a character in creative expression - should be fine. -> But using racist slurs against other people in civil discourse is totally inappropriate. If I called a co-worker a 'negro' or 'slut' I would expect to be fired. And neither of those things have to do with Free Speech. If you're quoting Orwell, do it in the right moments, because the more oppressive types will point out that using the Orwell defence in these scenarios is literally tantamount to supporting intellectuals calling each other the n-word in public, which is plain rude. Then they can discretid the entire range of people concerned about 'Free Speech' as just irrelevant radicals. When media companies, governments, corps and universities are banning people for having ideas they don't like (or saying 'verbotten words' even in a legitimate context) then you trot out Orwell and issues of Freedom of Expression.

shkkmo 5y ago
> using the Orwell defence in these scenarios is literally tantamount to supporting intellectuals calling each other the n-word in public Please explain how this could be "literally tantamount"? I don't understand that phrase or how this statement could be true.
- jollybean 5y ago
  The point is very clear and that someone is using Orwell to defend academics calling each other slurs in genteel settings. Obviously, that has nothing to do with Orwell, or even 'Free Speech'. As for 'literally tantamount' - the phrasing is poor, and would work better with only one of the two words, probably better just 'tantamount' or frankly neither. But it's completely moot. It doesn't change the fairly obvious implication of the statement. Free Speech is important, Orwell is important - but neither have anything to do with arbitrary ad-hominem slander among intellectuals in public. The author of the article is effectively making a personal plea, not really an intellectual one. Really what he's saying is 'I'm not that offended, don't dump this woman because she said something really raw'. Even if you remove the slur, the a statement such as "People think you're an idiot" is just terrible, playground rhetoric. Why would a University want to work with someone who makes arguments such as that that wouldn't even work well on Reddit? Use Orwell for where it was meant to be used.

lamontcg 5y ago

So what about a barrage of death and rape threats to women who dare to make youtube videos that are critical of sexism in video games? What about the racial abuse hurled over twitter at the black soccer players in the Euros who missed their pens? If you argue that people need to just suck that up, then you'll find that most people won't buy what you're selling. We're going to see freedom of speech curtailed because of problems like this where people won't self-regulate their bigotry at all. And I don't think its a good thing and you don't have to convince me that after they're done with the bigots that they'll come after the socialists. There needs to be a better argument than Absolutists-vs-Censorship though because I'm pretty sure censorship is gonna win that one.