5 ms·
> How to balance the need to restrict hate speech with the need to safeguard people’s right to express repulsive, immoral, toxic, and, yes, dangerous ideas? How
by slibhb 5y ago
> How to balance the need to restrict hate speech with the need to safeguard people’s right to express repulsive, immoral, toxic, and, yes, dangerous ideas? How to deal with evident falsehoods that poison today’s polarized electorate and undermine democracy? How to make sure that the need for new ways of including racial and social equality in our common conversation does not lead to the false innocence of hygienic “safe spaces” that preclude genuine debate? How to counter those who have been the beneficiaries of the vicious suppression of the right to speak of the enslaved, Native Americans, immigrants, and gay people and who now weaponize free speech to safeguard odious prejudices about gender and race, privilege and history? Who will be the judges of what can be disseminated without themselves becoming censors?
I wonder about this paragraph. The author is comfortable summarizing conservatives censoring left-wing ideas but he becomes flustered when dealing with the reverse. His prose suffers. Of course using free speech to "safeguard odious prejudices" isn't new, what's new is civil libertarians losing their nerve.
Why is free speech important? Is it an end in itself, a natural right? Or is it important because open debate is necessary for truth-seeking and truth-seeking is how we make the world better?
The problem with the latter justification is that it's contingent. If we decide that free speech does not lead to truth-seeking, or that truth-seeking won't lead to a better world, we can withdraw our support for free speech. I think we should keep with free speech even if it ruins us. At least we'll have learned something. If we give up our values, we'll be just another example of a culture losing a game of chicken with itself.
- traviswt 5y agoSpeech is the mechanism of collective thought.
- cryptonector 5y agoCan you explain your point?
- traviswt 5y agoIt is an answer to the question “Why is free speech important?” Nobody questions the importance of individual thought. Collective thought might even be more important. By squelching free speech we lose the ability to think collectively. Free speech is important because thought is important.
- cryptonector 5y agoThanks. And I agree.
- KarlKemp 5y agoThere is no liberal censorship in the US. The only censorship that is allowed in the US is based on ideas of obscenity, a rather conservative concept. The major battleground seems to be school boards. And besides mentions of anything outside sexless heterosexual marriage, the only issue that will trigger the censor is… anything vaguely mentioned the possibility that Black people might exist.
- MacsHeadroom 5y ago"Advertiser friendliness" extends from sensibilities of what a liberal audience finds "obscene" and is private, yet far reaching, censorship. JCS Criminal Psychology, an organization which posted FOIA'd police interrogation footage practically in full, being forced off of YouTube is a relatively wellknown non-political example of a victim of such censorship.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- Nursie 5y ago> If we decide that free speech does not lead to truth-seeking I think this much is now obvious. Unrestricted free speech, particularly of the kind that's backed by a commercial or political agenda, is not leading us to some idealised view of a marketplace of ideas, but a torrent of bullshit where the loudest voices are often heeded regardless of merit. Many people are not seeking to find the best ideas, they are seeking tribal identity and ego reinforcement. > I think we should keep with free speech even if it ruins us. At least we'll have learned something. This seems ... counter intuitive. I wouldn't expect that, should society tear itself apart over such things, any significant proportion of people will learn anything much from it. > If we give up our values, we'll be just another example of a culture losing a game of chicken with itself. Why is "allowing motivated bad actors to destroy our society" one of "our" values? We already have limits on speech (no yelling "Fire" etc etc), I would expect over time, and as new forms of speech arise, that those boundaries shift around. What I find absurd is the absolutist position - if trolls aren't allowed to spew the most vile hatred on all social media with no comeback and no removal, shadowing, anything, we've lost our freedom! All moderation is censorship! None of this is an argument for government censorship, but the ideals of a marketplace of ideas leading to advancement and intellectual progress, all fuelled by free speech, seem (to me) as busted as the idea that evolution necessarily causes advancement - the natural environment doesn't optimise for progress, but procreation. I think it's time to acknowledge that speech is subject to similar forces.
- commandlinefan 5y ago> where the loudest voices are often heeded Such as...? The only people being actively censored these days are conservatives - the least heeded voices in modern western discourse. Censoring communists in the 40's didn't stop their ideas from spreading then, either.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- Nursie 5y agoThe idea that conservative voices in the west are the victims of censorship is hilarious. The idea that they are the least heeded, when they are in fact in power in a lot of places, is equally funny.