4 ms·

offensive speech is the only free speech

version_five 5y ago
Maybe your comment was misunderstood. This is absolutely correct, freedom of speech is not freedom to say things that make everyone happy
umvi 5y ago
There is no equivalent to the first amendment in the United Kingdom, hence, a person being jailed for a tweet
- Jon_Lowtek 5y ago
  there is the Human Rights Act in the UK, but it includes rather vague limits to the freedom of expression like "protection of morals" among others.
- raxxorrax 5y ago
  Freedom of speech is a principle that nothing to do with laws at all at first. It is always an essential component of scientific inquiry for example. It is not optional here. There is also the freedom of association, so you do not have to associate with people whose opinion you don't like. Many countries have laws that disallow you to disturb the public order. These are old laws that aren't based on any principle aside authority, vanity and perhaps a little practicability in some situations. They should be improved. Blasphemy is illegal in my country. This law was not applied for decades and is therefore more or less invalid. It just hasn't been deprecated because laws do so very slowly without much incentives for public officials. So basically blasphemy is legal now. I would argue with the inception of the net and internet comments, offensive speech is legal too.
dane-pgp 5y ago
Or, to put it another way: The principle of "freedom of speech" only exists to protect offensive speech, because speech that no one found offensive wouldn't need protection.
- AnimalMuppet 5y ago
  And, on the internet, anyone can read what you wrote. The union of "offensive to someone" is a really large set...
  - kingcharles 5y ago
    I find your use of lower-case i Internet to be highly offensive to my elitism.
  - raxxorrax 5y ago
    If you potentially connect everyone to anyone else it is probably never an empty set.
refurb 5y ago
Exactly. Inoffensive speech doesn’t need protection because nobody wants to censor it.
- angry_octet 5y ago
  I would censor it. We have too much inoffensive speech. You've been fined £1. 3s.
  - tasha0663 5y ago
    Too fucking polite. I fine you double that for the miscarriage of justice.
    - kingcharles 5y ago
      What's that in groats?
tremon 5y ago
Your comment is easy to misread. If free speech only consists of demeaning and bullying statements, why is it worthwhile to defend? In this specific case, what about the tweet in question is worth defending? Is it worth defending only because it happens to be speech, or is there some actual merit to said speech? [edit: sure, downvote me instead of engaging the argument. Prove your first amendment worthless]
- collegeburner 5y ago
  I remember reading about how the British tried to limit "offensive" and "bullying" speech when we called King George all kinds of mean things. It's got a legitimate political use and is still worth defending. Most statements will offend at least 1 person, so is that enough to ban?
  - lupire 5y ago
    Wait until you learn about the Alien and Sedition Act....
- rubyist5eva 5y ago
  It's worthwile to defend offensive speech, like the one in the tweet, because one day there will be a culture/balance shift and what is deemed "offensive" will change. We have to defend what people consider awful now, because they are the low hanging fruit that normalizes the behavior and makes it more palatable to go after less offensive speech later. For the record, I did not downvote you.
- dotnet00 5y ago
  It's worth defending because it's criticism. Being offensive has zero relevance to whether or not it deserves to be defended. The merit of any speech is only obvious in hindsight and since we can't know when the merit will become obvious, all speech deserves to be defended regardless of how offensive it is. For instance, the merit of this tweet has now become more significant due to the awareness it has ended up spreading about offensive speech laws in Scotland. Similarly, individual tweets about a leader or country may be seen as offensive and meritless in our time, but perhaps in another 50 years historians look at them as a sign of changing opinions on some matter, giving them merit. Even if we drop that kind of grand view of things and just focus on smaller matters, companies pay a lot of attention to offensive speech because tracing down the cause will help them improve their product. Thus, clearly offensive speech has merit. If we determined that offensive speech was meritless, people saying offensive things wouldn't start saying things politely, they'd just say the offensive things privately, depriving society of a valuable feedback method.

Maybe your comment was misunderstood. This is absolutely correct, freedom of speech is not freedom to say things that make everyone happy

umvi 5y ago

There is no equivalent to the first amendment in the United Kingdom, hence, a person being jailed for a tweet

Jon_Lowtek 5y ago
there is the Human Rights Act in the UK, but it includes rather vague limits to the freedom of expression like "protection of morals" among others.
raxxorrax 5y ago
Freedom of speech is a principle that nothing to do with laws at all at first. It is always an essential component of scientific inquiry for example. It is not optional here. There is also the freedom of association, so you do not have to associate with people whose opinion you don't like. Many countries have laws that disallow you to disturb the public order. These are old laws that aren't based on any principle aside authority, vanity and perhaps a little practicability in some situations. They should be improved. Blasphemy is illegal in my country. This law was not applied for decades and is therefore more or less invalid. It just hasn't been deprecated because laws do so very slowly without much incentives for public officials. So basically blasphemy is legal now. I would argue with the inception of the net and internet comments, offensive speech is legal too.

dane-pgp 5y ago

Or, to put it another way: The principle of "freedom of speech" only exists to protect offensive speech, because speech that no one found offensive wouldn't need protection.

AnimalMuppet 5y ago
And, on the internet, anyone can read what you wrote. The union of "offensive to someone" is a really large set...
- kingcharles 5y ago
  I find your use of lower-case i Internet to be highly offensive to my elitism.
- raxxorrax 5y ago
  If you potentially connect everyone to anyone else it is probably never an empty set.

refurb 5y ago

Exactly. Inoffensive speech doesn’t need protection because nobody wants to censor it.

angry_octet 5y ago
I would censor it. We have too much inoffensive speech. You've been fined £1. 3s.
- tasha0663 5y ago
  Too fucking polite. I fine you double that for the miscarriage of justice.
  - kingcharles 5y ago
    What's that in groats?

tremon 5y ago

Your comment is easy to misread. If free speech only consists of demeaning and bullying statements, why is it worthwhile to defend? In this specific case, what about the tweet in question is worth defending? Is it worth defending only because it happens to be speech, or is there some actual merit to said speech? [edit: sure, downvote me instead of engaging the argument. Prove your first amendment worthless]

collegeburner 5y ago
I remember reading about how the British tried to limit "offensive" and "bullying" speech when we called King George all kinds of mean things. It's got a legitimate political use and is still worth defending. Most statements will offend at least 1 person, so is that enough to ban?
- lupire 5y ago
  Wait until you learn about the Alien and Sedition Act....
rubyist5eva 5y ago
It's worthwile to defend offensive speech, like the one in the tweet, because one day there will be a culture/balance shift and what is deemed "offensive" will change. We have to defend what people consider awful now, because they are the low hanging fruit that normalizes the behavior and makes it more palatable to go after less offensive speech later. For the record, I did not downvote you.
dotnet00 5y ago
It's worth defending because it's criticism. Being offensive has zero relevance to whether or not it deserves to be defended. The merit of any speech is only obvious in hindsight and since we can't know when the merit will become obvious, all speech deserves to be defended regardless of how offensive it is. For instance, the merit of this tweet has now become more significant due to the awareness it has ended up spreading about offensive speech laws in Scotland. Similarly, individual tweets about a leader or country may be seen as offensive and meritless in our time, but perhaps in another 50 years historians look at them as a sign of changing opinions on some matter, giving them merit. Even if we drop that kind of grand view of things and just focus on smaller matters, companies pay a lot of attention to offensive speech because tracing down the cause will help them improve their product. Thus, clearly offensive speech has merit. If we determined that offensive speech was meritless, people saying offensive things wouldn't start saying things politely, they'd just say the offensive things privately, depriving society of a valuable feedback method.