19 ms·

From observing various internet forums, including this one, I noticed that people from the "first world" countries don't know the value of free speech and often

• TameAntelope 5y ago
  This is a naive view. Twitter does not enable free speech for a single person on this planet. Every el single prison in the world who can access Twitter can also access any number of other ways to speak freely.
  • Koshkin 5y ago
    But there is a reason why people choose Twitter.com over OtherWaysToSpeak.com.
    • TameAntelope 5y ago
      Not a reason related to their human rights.
• psyc 5y ago
  Thank you for saying so. As an older American, it’s absolutely maddening and I feel exactly the same way, insofar as people taking it for granted.
• andrepd 5y ago
  Nice comment (in the style of "I'll get downvoted for this but"), but I don't see how this is remotely related to the article at hand. A multi-hundred-billionaire is bidding for a takeover of one of the largest internet public forums. How is this conducive to free speech?
  • harambae 5y ago
    Well there is wide speculation that Elon could open up the rules of twitter a bit - perhaps allow Trump back on, widen what type of Covid-19 discourse can posted without repercussions, etc. Fewer people think Elon has any predilection to locking down what can be said on Twitter. (I don't know what will happen ultimately, but that's how it could be related.)
    • mattbrewsbytes 5y ago
      That has nothing to do with free speech though. That has to do with changing the TOS for users of a private (after buyout) company.
    • andrepd 5y ago
      So we have an unelected multi-hundred-billionaire deciding the rules, which may or may not be less restrictive when it comes to certain types of discourse of his choosing. I still fail to see where the "freedom" part enters into all this.
  • commandlinefan 5y ago
    > How is this conducive to free speech? He couldn't possibly be any worse than what we already have.
  • NaturalPhallacy 5y ago
    People were censored for saying the Hunter Biden laptop was real in 2020. People were censored for covid "misinformation" that turned out to be true. Twitter is very much an anti-free speech platform at the moment. He's a free speech absolutist. How is the purchase of a wildly biased and censorial platform by a free speech absolutist not conducive to free speech?
• schleck8 5y ago
  Undermining the legitimacy of liberalism through enabling its abuse by extremists in violation of other laws is equally as dangerous.
• insta_anon 5y ago
  Which country is that?
  • ganyu 5y ago
  • keyme 5y ago
    Not OP, but probably Russia. Not that there are no other examples in the last 20 years, it's just that some are more controversial to call out.
    • watwut 5y ago
      Or Hungary, tho less messy I guess.
    • lossolo 5y ago
      Russia never had fundaments for democracy, its democracy was a facade and still is, all state controlled media were brain washing society from the 90s, there is no rule of law for you in Russia if you are against someone from the party or local government.
      • naoqj 5y ago
        > all state controlled media were brain washing society from the 90s Name a country where that isn’t true.
        • mvc 5y ago
          As an independence supporting Scot, I'm not much of a fan of the UK "state media" but even I can recognize that the BBC is no Rossiya. So that's who I name. UK.
• croes 5y ago
  It works both ways, free speech with global range allows fringe extremists to disrupt democracies. Just look how russia uses this free speech. Free speech is ok but not with unlimited range.
  • cloutchaser 5y ago
    Because Russia has used its free speech how? Internally they ban all opposition media, which is not free speech, it's only hearing from propaganda. Considering the events of the last 2 months, has Russia really managed to turn the west pro Russia or anti Ukraine at all? I literally don't understand what you are trying to say.
    • etrautmann 5y ago
      I would guess the parent intended to convey that Russia weaponizes free speech in the US via troll farms/etc for foreign influence, not that they have it domestically?
      • watwut 5y ago
        That actually makes it make sense. Thank you.
      • croes 5y ago
        Exactly
      • cloutchaser 5y ago
        Seems like my point has gone right over everyone's head who answered... How well has what Russia done worked? Like how loved is Russia right now in the west? How many people agree with it? (sidenote: the russia brexit involvement has been 100% disproven. The Trump russia thing has been 100% disproven. The hunter biden laptop was not russian disinformation)
        • croes 5y ago
          It's not about love for russia, it's about doubt in western science and governments. How many people reject vaccines? How many belief the governments are controlled by a secret elite? Even flat earthers are linked to russian psyops.
• pmoriarty 5y ago
  So you're against any limits on speech whatsoever, including the proverbial "shouting Fire! in a crowded theater" and inciting an angry mob to lynch their victim?
  • suction 5y ago
    sounds like it. Or maybe he (and others like him) just lack the ability to think it through.
  • ryeights 5y ago
    >shouting Fire! in a crowded theater Please stop using this quote… https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/01/shouting-fire-crowded-theater-speech-regulation/621151/ https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/01/shouting-f... https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/11/its-time-to-stop-using-the-fire-in-a-crowded-theater-quote/264449/ https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/11/its-tim...
  • deleted 5y ago
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• ransom1538 5y ago
  We must stop free speech! I am against Musk's actions - he will end up letting people speak. Saying what you want is too dangerous! When guests speak at colleges scream and yell! We must fight for no free speech!!! I beg you our democracy[1] is at stake! Ban all free thinking discussions! [1] democracy is a system that only works if everyone thinks the same.
• watwut 5y ago
  This meme about first world countries not valuing freedom and freespeach while people from formerly authoritarian place understand it better if common on HN. But meanwhile, first world countries are significantly less likely to slip into full on authoritarianism and generally do better in that regards.
• suction 5y ago
  Your personal story might colour your preference here. I still think the Western European model of "Free Speech with consequences" is the best one around. If you have a huge following and use Twitter to say without evidence "restaurant xyz uses rat meat don't go eat there, or 'Tim Cook has AIDS and will die in 3 months'", then that would be protected by free speech like the right-wingers want it. But in the Western European model, you could be sued for making those claims and effectively hurting the restaurant, Tim Cook, and the Apple stock price. I'd rather live in a society where that's not possible without dire consequences for the fraudulent "free speech" abuser.
  • BrianOnHN 5y ago
    "Abuse" is mostly subjective. There need to be equal repercussions for fraudulently claiming abuse, too. Search SLAPP to learn more about the current lack of repercussions against wealthy entities suing journalists.
    • suction 5y ago
      Nope, nothing subjective about the examples I gave there. Try harder.
      • deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
    • lm28469 5y ago
      Most laws are subjectively applied. That's what happens in societies made of men with opinions and not made of robots, always has been, always will be, the case of free speech isn't an exception
    • TimPC 5y ago
      SLAPP may be too strong but I don’t think it’s an unreasonable position that libel rights be enforceable at reasonable levels of financial risk. Some lawsuits are lost on technicalities and missing a technicality shouldn’t force someone to pay not only their own legal bills but also the journalist’s. There should be a very high bar for having to pay someone else’s legal fees, especially in situations where a publisher can use disproportionate resources in representation. The NYT is likely to spend over 10x on their defence as I spend on my case if they libel me. Do we want the financial bar to being able to defend oneself to raise by an order of magnitude?
• deleted 5y ago
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• mc32 5y ago
  I expect that many of the people who used to say private companies can set policies and ban at their pleasure will begin to realize this is a bad policy and only serves to establish an echo chamber rather than a free exchange of ideas. Of course that whole argument was a ruse and I believe that was hypocrisy that will get naturally exposed. We'll see.
  • pohl 5y ago
    Amazing that anyone would think that the kinds of things that actually get moderated-out would have somehow enriched discourse — as if humanity doesn't have more productive things about which to amicably disagree.
    • mc32 5y ago
      So discussing the Hunter Biden laptop and whether or not the Steele dossier was a hit job by Hillary and co., whether some Covid policies made sense or not, whether it's fair or not that people who grew up as boys or men and take hormone treatment as they transition to females are fair in competing against biologically female athletes are all outside enriching discourse? The above is not to take sides, but rather allow discussion to find what makes sense. At times any of the above were taboo subjects. Imagine some ideologue on the other extreme of the political spectrum were to take over (Musk is in my view, mildly libertarian) and suppressed talk about abortion rights, gender equality, police violence, drug liberalization, etc. That's what the extreme left is doing but obviously they have their own, different sacred cows.
      • pohl 5y ago
        I have good news for you: there is still a veritable cornucopia of tweets about Hunter's laptop, and the Steele dossier, and COVID policies, and trans folk as athletes out there. I see them every damned day with my own eyes. While there have been a few people who violated the ToS while pushing those agendas, it's hard to argue that anything of real value was lost during its enforcement.
        • 5y ago
• lm28469 5y ago
  The US is the only country with such weird views on free speech, there are many perfectly free (often with better freedom of speech/press scores actually) first world countries with different definition of free speech.
  • rhexs 5y ago
    Hottest take on HN. Countries without actual free speech have better “free speech” than the only country with actual free speech.
    • andrepd 5y ago
      >the only country with actual free speech I think you win the hottest take award with that one ;)
    • Ardren 5y ago
      American's act like the constitution is some uniquely divine document that makes them special. Honestly it's tiring.
      • sofixa 5y ago
        American Civil Religion is a powerful drug. Funnily that and their deification of "The Founding Fathers" smell a lot like the absolutist models of Kings and their Divine rights, while being the opposite.
        • salawat 5y ago
          How do ya figure? We recognize the Founders for having the courage to throw off the yoke of an oppressor, and succeed. We honor them for then in the same lifetime laying out a blueprint of government that has reasonably withstood the test of time and managed to remain flexible in spite of some serious adversity. Is it showing it's age? Probably, Is it long overdue for a strong reaffirmation? Probably also. Does it instill in any one particular dude the absolute unquestionable right to rule over anyone else? No. No it doesn't. The American Experiment, though the institutions of today hedge more on the side of "we'll be the judge of whether you can do that" was fundamentally a novel effort at it's time. It enumerated the Governments specific powers and limits, then dumped the rest of the power in the people to do with as they will. Completely different beasts.
• throwaway4good 5y ago
  You can trash talk all you want - though some outlets may not let you because they care about their other users. In other words. If you get thrown out of hn, you can try reddit, but you may end up enjoing 4chan. If you go to jail, it will be because of something you did, not something you said. In other words: It is all free speech, and we, the other people, have an equal right not to listen to you.
  • midwitedu 5y ago
    A conflation at best idiotic and at worst actively disingenuous. Not listening would be you choosing to ignore someone. You don't have the right to throw them to the curb for expressing an opinion. Really, it's like HN has fallen three standard deviations on the IQ bell curve today.
• bmitc 5y ago
  Musk’s involvement in Twitter has absolutely nothing to do with free speech. Like many things he does, it’s a false narrative to push what he wants forwards. He has a clear history of trying to bully and shutdown those that disagree with him in any capacity.
  • kylecordes 5y ago
    I too am eager to see whether, if the bid is accepted, the tremendous quantity and variety of anti-Musk sentiment on Twitter keeps flowing.
    • bmitc 5y ago
      It’s just unbelievable to me that people are talking about this free speech thing as if it’s a legitimate thing to actually be talked about. These are Trump and Putin tactics. Get people talking about idiotic claims as if they’re real, while you do what you want behind the noise. Musk is the person who claimed that the SEC was violating his free speech rights for investigating him over market manipulation. I would argue the SEC was actually very light on Musk, and it’s clear here again Musk is manipulating the market. If Twitter denies his offer, he will sell after pumping the stock, and he already indicated that in his offer letter in order to soften claims of market manipulation. If Twitter accepts his offer, he gets massive control over his “free” speech.
      • hstan4 5y ago
        > Trump and Putin tactics The bias here is quite clear across all your comments
      • joshsyn 5y ago
        lol, you are funny. think you are the one who can be easily controlled. Putin does not even speak english. The delusional with this one is strong.
        • themitigating 5y ago
• maxerickson 5y ago
  Would you not eject someone from you property if they were harassing your other guests? It's not an exact analogy, and there are features like mute and block that are less severe than removing someone from a platform, but people generally don't want to individually deal with every person who decides that being miserable to others is the best use for social media.
  • Steltek 5y ago
    Moderation, either top-down curation or bottom-up mute/block, is not a solution. Either way, you're going to haphazardly create echo chambers, which aren't great at maintaining free speech.
• Frost1x 5y ago
  I think many of the people described aren't taking free speech for granted, they're reevaluating the idea in a new social dynamic. Technology has changed the societal impact on free speech drastically: reach, frequency, noise, targetability. In parallel, populations have grown drastically so the scale for ideas to reach critical mass and spread have changed. The dynamics are simply different now. I think many understand the consequences of highly restricted speech and how much benefit free speech has, including how censorship and tight control on speech has lead to undesirable government regimes historically. What people are really doing is reevaluating the costs side in the new environment where there's no longer a town square, information has the potential to spread to masses quickly, information is more difficult to separate from noise, and those with harmful intent can speak with more anonymity. I'm a huge fan of free speech but the increasing potential damaging effects can't be completepy ignored. It's better if we can defend against such issues, in my opinion, and protect free speech, not ignore them and go on as is.
  • throwaway4aday 5y ago
    I think you're wrong. The "increasing potential damaging effects" are only damaging to the current regime. The internet is just the latest iteration in a long succession of things that challenge the power of the elite and we're experiencing exactly the same blowback and propaganda that gets trotted out every time this happens. Even the whole "fake news" rhetoric isn't new but hundreds of years old. People with privileged positions, power and money are scrambling to widen their moats and shore up their positions against the rabble as they once again wrench the wool from their eyes. https://www.history.com/news/coffee-houses-revolutions https://www.history.com/news/coffee-houses-revolutions https://www.britannica.com/topic/publishing/Printed-illustrations#ref28621 https://www.britannica.com/topic/publishing/Printed-illustra... http://www.beaconforfreedom.org/liste.html?tid=415 http://www.beaconforfreedom.org/liste.html?tid=415
• SirHound 5y ago
  Yes this is why there are very few actual limits on free speech. Twitter isn't going to throw you in jail for saying something wrong on the platform. Your country didn't slide into a fascist state because a private company started limiting which kinds of posts are allowed on the platform it made and owns.
• cduzz 5y ago
  I'm not really sure what you mean by free speech here. Do you mean that, if I say "this war is bad!" I may be "arrested" and "tried" and then put in a jail for 15 years (or just vanish, or be dropped from a helicopter over the ocean). Or do you mean if I tweet "I'll <wink wink> 2nd amendment those Hajis!" my tweet won't be seen by 12 million people rather than "promoted" by some algorithm? Freedom of speech, as denoted in the United States Constitution, is a set of limits around the government behaviors. U.S. Government behaviors. The dose makes the medicine.
• cmatthias 5y ago
  You are conflating the concept of free speech with "free reach." At least in the US, you have always had the right to create your own web site and say whatever you want. That right should never be taken away. However, another privately-run website should never be forced to broadcast anyone's content to hundreds of millions of other people.
  • needlefish 5y ago
  • theandrewbailey 5y ago
    When that privately-run website becomes the public square (as Twitter wants or has done), it should forfeit some moderation rights.
    • wan23 5y ago
      Twitter is an influential platform, but most people aren't on it. It's not that big of a deal.
      • _bfhp 5y ago
        Newspapers are an influential platform, but most people aren't reading them. It's not that big of a deal if the government decided to censor them, agreed?
        • cmatthias 5y ago
          Wait, either I'm missing something huge or this analogy is fatally flawed. Are you claiming that the _government_ is censoring Twitter?
        • themitigating 5y ago
          I don't think you understand the original comment. 1. Newspapers and Twitter should be able to and often censor themselves 2. The government shouldn't censor newspapers or Twitter.
• yummybear 5y ago
  I understand what you’re saying. A problem is we have enemies weaponizing free speech as propaganda through social media. We have fascist wannabe dictators with a speaker in every citizens wallet. We have role models peddeling antiscientific junk to our kids. This isn’t the free speech of the 1900’s. Social media is a game changer and a possible weapon of mass destruction - imo. Free speech to me doesn’t mean you get to say everything everywere. Try standing up in a restaurant and shout political propaganda - you’re gonna get thrown out.
  • midwitedu 5y ago
    Dreary, historically-ignorant myopia. Neither you nor the era in which you live are special enough to erode generations of protections for the ability to think freely, speak freely, and to do so without fear of repercussions.
  • throwaway4aday 5y ago
    This is great evidence that most people know nothing about history. The same arguments have been made about TV, Radio, Magazines, Newspapers, Books, Philosophy and practically any other medium that people have used to convey ideas. This is exactly why you need to protect an individuals rights to free speech and expression from anyone with power because chances are that they'll have a biased streak a mile wide and won't be ashamed to impose their personal view of how the world should be on everyone around them no matter how much human suffering it produces. The only way to have a free society is to realize that everyone, the president, your hairdresser, doctors, factory workers, lawyers, farmers, journalists, grocery store clerks and you and me are all flawed, weak, limited human beings who are mostly trying to be good but are perfectly capable of evil at any turn and so we have to all agree to limit anyone's power over anyone else to the largest extent possible. If we misjudge and allow too much power to collect in any one office then we will inevitably be subjugated by it as it uses that power to accrue more and more influence over time and as we roll the dice with every new person that takes control of it. This has played out throughout all of human history and there's absolutely nothing about our time that guarantees it won't happen again.
    • 5y ago
• Miner49er 5y ago
  There's been limits on free speech in the US and other first world countries forever. Where we put those limits will always be up for debate, but I don't think it's realistic to ever expect no limits.
• loudmax 5y ago
  Private companies are not the arbiters of free speech, and they should not be compelled by the government or anyone else to distribute views they don't like. This especially goes for businesses whose revenue models are based around advertising, where the financial incentives do not line up with the social benefit of their users. I believe the proper solution here is social networks that are open, distributed, and federated. It is not for government or advertisers to decide what speech must, or must not, be discussed in the open.
• fastbeef 5y ago
  From observing various internet forums, including this one, I noticed that people from the "first world" countries think Elon Musk actually cares about freedom of speech and isn’t just a bored billionaire throwing his weight around.
• needlefish 5y ago
  It is bizarre in the US that people don't really think about it being the first thing amended to our constitution. As if that was just random ordering and not a statement in and of itself.
• deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
• snowwrestler 5y ago
  The principle of free speech is what lets Twitter (which is just a collection of private people) decide which content to publish or not publish.
• micromacrofoot 5y ago
  free speech as an american concept does not cover private businesses, it's specifically meant to curb government censorship if private businesses had to uphold the same standards the internet would very quickly devolve into every space becoming 4chan... you'd see people protesting inside of stores, it would be a mess maybe there's a call to make a platform like twitter a public utility, that would possibly solve it, but what a thorny situation that would be... I imagine the rules would likely be more restrictive than they are now, despite censorship laws. I'd guess they'd want to strip anonymity as well.
• asdfapslkjtewr 5y ago
  [flagged]
• mcdonje 5y ago
  I don't know why anyone would trust Musk to champion free speech. He has no background with any org that works on protecting free speech. He hasn't done work with the ACLU. Billionaires buying media companies has been great for broadcasting the billionaire perspective, but mixed at best on free speech. A lot of people currently decrying moderation activities on US social media sites as being against free speech are the same people supporting bills, mostly in state governments, that limit free speech.
  • MetaWhirledPeas 5y ago
    > He has no background with any org that works on protecting free speech. I would argue Starlink occupies that role.
    • sofixa 5y ago
      That's a very wild claim. How did you make that jump and why Starlink and not every other ISP?
      • kietay 5y ago
        I’m assuming because they offer open ISP services inside jurisdictions where the government censors the Internet.
        • ceejayoz 5y ago
          Not in its current iteration, which relies on ground stations in or near those countries. You're not gonna get Starlink service in China or Iran, even if you can get a dish.
          • NaturalPhallacy 5y ago
            He recently sent a truckload of dishes to Ukraine...
    • dahart 5y ago
• lobochrome 5y ago
  Hacker News is moderated rather strongly (hi dang)
• hyperbovine 5y ago
  > Understand this: limits on free speech are far more dangerous to society than allowing fringe extremists to spread their ideas. Germany has had such a policy regarding holocaust denial for decades, and they don’t appear to be on the verge of tyranny to me. It’s not as black and white as you make it out to be.
  • goodpoint 5y ago
    Spot on! See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance
• themitigating 5y ago
  did this transition happen because extremists were able to spread their ideas?
• bambax 5y ago
  In most of Europe, the governments regulate free speech, and it works okay.
  • Hamuko 5y ago
    What country doesn't regulate free speech?
  • NaturalPhallacy 5y ago
    Putting people in jail for jokes is not "working okay".
• ss108 5y ago
  > Understand this: limits on free speech are far more dangerous to society than allowing fringe extremists to spread their ideas. I just don't see the evidence to back this claim up. Granted, if I really think about it, I am not directly harmed either way. The fact that this is one of our fiercer debates is probably a good sign of our decadence lol
• Proven 5y ago
  [dead]
• RockyMcNuts 5y ago
  Free speech is never 100% free, there are laws against libel, fraud, conspiracy, copyright, trademark, which create crimes that consist only of speech, or civil liability. Courts and parliaments have rules of procedure so it's not, whoever's loudest wins. And then there are social norms. Slippery slope arguments are a slippery slope to never doing anything to improve anything. It's always a balance between letting 20% of hateful crazy troll Nazis hijack all rational conversation, on the one hand, and blocking unpopular opinions on the other hand. Even HN moderates a lot. Same applies to all the rights enumerated in the US Constitution, you have freedom of religion to the extent it doesn't infringe on the other important rights and provisions of the Constitution. Polygamy is banned. If your religion says servitude of women or Black people is God's will, you don't get to practice it. 2nd Amendment however broadly interpreted doesn't let you build a nuclear weapon in your backyard. Also true, a lot of people want to block legitimate speech they don't want to hear and should be resisted. The first step toward fascism is indeed people not caring about free speech and thinking their personal discomfort is the most important thing, starting with the most powerful. Protesters get arrested and kettled, Colin Kaepernick loses his contracts. You're not going to stop the powerful from trying. It's never 'cancel culture' when state legislatures cancel women, minorities, gay or trans people, it's only 'cancel culture' when those people call out the powerful. We need free speech, but letting liars and extremists run the public square and destroy all decency isn't the answer either. You need to protect free speech by having reasonable rules and norms. "Arbitrary power is most easily established on the ruins of liberty abused to licentiousness." - George Washington
• bdcravens 5y ago
  > Coming from a country that had made a transition from a (rather messy) democracy to an authoritarian fascist police state in just 15 years, I tell you this: it all started with limits on the freedom of speech. Was this the government restricting speech, or private enterprise?
• deleted 5y ago
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• strogonoff 5y ago
  “Free speech” tends to be used in two ways: free speech the compound phrase, and free speech as two words taken literally. Certain subsets of population love to hijack discussions by forcing the latter meaning[0]—they break the phrase up into separate words and take them as absolutes. Yet the reality is that free speech in absolute sense doesn’t exist: a bit like free market, in a world where malicious actors exist at all, it has to be subject to limits (moreover, in any culture there are its own taboos defining additional unwritten constraints). The first meaning is what “free speech” refers to in any meaningful political discussion about free speech. It is fundamentally vital in a democracy, and no sane person would qualify it as absolute. Fine aspects of what conditional free speech actually implies could be a worthy topic. Off the top of my head, free speech is where you don’t need to censor yourself provided you are of sound mind and do not mean harm, but this is not very precise. How should we define the limits of free speech on a meta level? Is it their vagueness that causes distress? Once the terminological ambiguity is settled, meaningful debate becomes possible. [0] I believe in most cases such individuals have their own agenda to push, and one would become equally opposed to absolute free speech as soon as their preferred agenda is implemented.
• chunsj 5y ago
  Most of the case, "different views" are not different; simply, they are just wrong ones. When people says "limit free speech", it's intended to limit these. Liberalism is meaningless without under democratic control.
• pilsetnieks 5y ago
  There isn't a black and white answer to this. It should be painfully obvious by now that unrestricted free speech also enables incredibly technologically amplified propagandists of various stripes to drive people's behavior to various extremes including threatening the existence of that same democracy.
  • Clubber 5y ago
    Yes, there is certainly a limit on both sides. I think when social media platforms would ban hate speech and the like, most people were perfectly ok with it. Once they started banning political opinions that most people would consider not that inflammatory, or even interesting (think COVID discussion) people starting having a problem. The social media platforms themselves became a political tool rather than a tool to share ideas. Why is Twitter really important? This is really the crux of it for me. Ever since mass communications, the news was the arbitrator of opinion. It was common for journalists of prominent newspapers (like the NYT) to declare themselves "kingmakers" in elections, even presidential ones. How they portrayed a candidate directly affected his or her outcome in a significant way. If journalists at the NYT thought a candidate wasn't a "serious candidate", they wouldn't get much coverage, or that coverage would be intentionally unflattering. Social media breaks that barrier down because now the politicians can circumvent the news as a middleman of information and we can now have discussions of ideas on a fairly large scale without requiring the news to deliver that information. Once Twitter becomes just another arbitrator of information, then we've regressed as a society back to the times where all our information was filtered by "kingmakers." Instead of a new world with much more available contact with our political class, we digress to the way it was before, the only difference is we have new arbitrators.
• pupppet 5y ago
  Is flagging/moderation on HN also included in your free speech world view? Do you believe you should be able to walk into any television station and step in front of a camera? Free speech is not free soapbox.
• Spooky23 5y ago
  There’s a difference between free speech and access to global loudspeaker. You don’t have freedom to get maximum engagement. Twitter and Facebook are dangerous because they allow anything that gets them money. Political campaigns and foreign influence campaigns wield armies of bots to spew bullshit. People of more libertarian bent tend to focus on some idealized vision of free speech. When those platforms enable fascists to overthrow democratic governments, you’ve won the battle and lost the war.
• JoeNr76 5y ago
  Limits on free speech by government is dangerous. Private companies enforcing rules you have agreed to when you became a member, is something completely different.
• deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
• magpi3 5y ago
  Do you remember why Trump was banned on twitter? He was using his social media presence as part of a plan to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, and he was banned from both Twitter and Facebook after the U.S. Capitol building was essentially sacked due to these efforts. That sounds pretty dangerous to me. He, and others like him, never lost their right to free speech. Nothing stops them from creating their own website (which he has), or saying anything they want on the numerous platforms that do support them. They just lost access to social media platforms which by gamified design make spreading information (and misinformation) to the masses incredibly easy, so easy that a group of people were actually convinced that they had a mandate to attack the capitol to stop a cabal of pedophiles from stealing the 2020 election, a mandate from a president who at any time was going to unleash a flurry of indictments that would expose and jail the leaders of the Democratic Party. I don't know what the right answer is, but January 6th was an event that proved that something was truly out of control. The 1st amendment is not going anywhere, but I do support efforts to make it at least a little harder, or rather not so ridiculously easy, to spread lies that can ravage a country's democratic processes. I know that sounds anti-free speech, but again, the U.S. Capitol was sacked by a group of people inspired by lies on social media, and I think we need to acknowledge we live in a new world because of that.
  • blurbleblurble 5y ago
    In some places it's not the capitol getting sacked but villages of families of a certain ethnicity. All because someone knew which button to push and had that ability to amplify it in social media. "Free speech absolutism"? Sounds more to me like ignorance that there are literally teams of data science monitoring social coordinated inauthentic behavior to nip mob violence in the bud. No I don't want Elon Musk anywhere near them.
  • Andrew_nenakhov 5y ago
    > Do you remember why Trump was banned on twitter? I remember Trump being suppressed for many months on Twitter, his tweets censored, labelled as misinformation, and information damaging to his opponent was suppressed and labelled as 'disinformation'. By now, many of those claims have been proven to be false. People cheering Trump's ban never ask themselves a question, what if this was a candidate they supported? They somehow magically think that no, they'll never be supporting such a horrible bad person so that the benevolent Twitter overlords would have to suppress. Yeah, that is absolutely impossible. Right. /s
• wwweston 5y ago
  I'll worry the moment the state makes expression of ideas illegal. When it comes to private vehicles for speech, the right to amplify or attenuate speech carried on these vehicles is itself a free speech right. Newspapers can exercise editorial judgment. Forums can create policies. These policies can be regarding how discourse is conducted, they can even be topical. Your Math Professor can shut down your classmate's extemporaneous treatise about the gold standard taking up time in linear algebra class. Time, place, and manner matter. Everyone has a right and a responsibility to curate conversation in a way that serves the discourse for their sphere of influence -- except the state itself. Everyone also has the right and responsibility to create a new forum or sphere to discuss ideas they feel aren't being poorly served elsewhere. Or, if they wish, any ideas without limitation at all.
  • Pxtl 5y ago
    > I'll worry the moment the state makes expression of ideas illegal. Uh, we already do that. Fraud, defamation, uttering threats, false advertising, perjury, filing a false report, etc. At this point the distinction that matters is what we choose to protect from such ideas. "Keira Knightly is anorexic" is an idea that is illegal -- https://www.theguardian.com/media/2007/may/24/dailymail.pressandpublishing https://www.theguardian.com/media/2007/may/24/dailymail.pres... "Climate change is fake" is, apparently, not one.
    • wwweston 5y ago
      > Uh, we already do that. Fraud, defamation, uttering threats, false advertising, perjury, filing a false report, etc. Sometimes I think "free speech" is a misnomer, and the common phrase should be "freedom of discourse." Fraud, defamation, threats, perjury etc aren't really discourse. They don't serve ideas (and in fact, tend to do violence to ideas). In any case, you're correct that 1st amendment and other free speech rights are not unlimited indulgences that excuse one from certain legal obligations to be truthful, or to not threaten. In spite of this, the US and most industrialized democracies remain remarkably supportive of freedom of discourse from a state perspective.
      • 5y ago
• phatfish 5y ago
  This is quite patronizing to people in "first world" countries. If there is no limit to free speech is it not possible that lies and falsehoods are so potent that spreading them leads to an authoritarian fascist police state? There is a line that has to be drawn, for me it is solidly on the free-speech end of the scale, but absolutely not "unlimited". I hope enough people will recognize when an idea is moving a society from democracy to autocracy and in this case all options to stop the autocrat should be used, including shutting down their ideas. Trump walked very close to the line with his big lie on the legitimacy of the last US presidential election.
• Pxtl 5y ago
  We already have limitations on free speech in the "first world". Ask somebody involved in a merger how "free" their speech is. Or somebody involved in a court case. At issue is what we choose to protect from harmful lies. Wealthy people with good access to lawyers can sue for defamation. A courtroom is protected by perjury laws. Business is protected from fraud. And yet the tools to fight the COVID pandemic are beneath protection? Minorities are beneath protection? Look at the Americans -- half the country still thinks the election was stolen, and the only people facing consequences for that are the ones who lied about Dominion Voting Solutions because there a business had standing to show damages. Free speech online has been tried, the end result is 4chan, which gave way to Qanon. When fascism takes hold in the first world, it will be "free speech" without any protection of truth that ushered it there.
• toss1 5y ago
  Also understand this: Free Speech Absolutism is as stupid as any other form of absolutism. Absolutism, almost without exception, is an oversimplification. It's easy and facile to defend, but also wrong, in that absolutism by definition ignores all edge cases. And some of those edge cases can have extremely severe consequences, effectively crashing the system and killing large numbers of people. YES — the constraints on the ways in which govt can limit free speech should themselves be extremely constrained, precisely because the dangers of government constraints rapidly escalate. Yet the dangers of disinformation, algorithmically amplified to maximize 'engagement' are also to the level where the system can be crashed and result in mass killings. The effects of both can be seen from Russia this week. Their massive disinformation campaigns and combined with effective near-total suppression of free speech has 60% to 80% support and almost total suppression of dissent [0][1]. The result here is hundreds of millions of people supporting a genocide in their neighboring country. Yet completely free access to all media, and not only speech but amplified media platforms can also bring down democracies. The spread of Russian disinformation specifically to increase polarization in democracies is working. It already converted Hungary to an authoritarian state, and France is now very close to falling to an authoritarian party... The ability to deliberately manipulate the public conversation with tens of thousands of fake accounts is not free speech, it is freely amplified lies [2]. The real problem is that if free speech is converted to free amplification of whatever disinformation any authoritarian state thinks is in its interest, the result will be not more free speech, but the end of democracy and imposition of a far tighter regime on free speech. Again, look at Hungary - they had an open democracy, and free speech resulted in divisions, and an authoritarian took over. Now, free speech is severely curtailed in order to keep the authoritarian in power. Is the solution to curtail free speech at the outset? Maybe a little, something like the old Equal Time requirements for broadcast TV, or on social media, accurate identification of the source. Probably more important and effective than curtailing free speech is to actively and in real-time counter the disinformation. This actually worked in the Ukraine war, as Russian disinformation efforts were countered and called out as the lies that they were within hours, which denied the Russians the cover they had when such pretexts went unchallenged in 2014 as Crimea was invaded. So, yes speech must be biased very strongly towards the FREE end, but requiring a private platform to amplify any particular speech is just as un-free. If you want an amplified platform for your views that most consider abhorrent, you are FREE to make your own competing platform. [0] https://www.israelhayom.com/2022/03/11/russian-campaign-depicts-widespread-public-support-for-ukraine-war/ https://www.israelhayom.com/2022/03/11/russian-campaign-depi... [1] https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-03-05/russian-support-for-putin-ukraine-invasion/100881316 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-03-05/russian-support-for-p... [2] https://theconversation.com/russian-embassy-in-canada-weaponizes-social-media-to-fuel-support-for-ukraine-invasion-180109 https://theconversation.com/russian-embassy-in-canada-weapon... EDIT: Additionally, it is not exactly a secret that Russia is running bot factories - it is openly mentioned on their mass media [3]. It is not individual speech that needs to be controlled, it is amplified govt and corporate speech abusing the agora that needs to be controlled. We must understand the difference and apply different rules & repsonses. [3] https://twitter.com/JuliaDavisNews/status/1514422628009881600 https://twitter.com/JuliaDavisNews/status/151442262800988160...
• oblio 5y ago
  > it all started with limits on the freedom of speech No, it all started with your citizens giving up on democracy. They probably chose safety or convenience or stability (economic, probably) or a mix of them. That's how all democracies fail (barring ones invaded by other countries). People don't want them anymore. Where people really want democracy, they fight for it. It's that simple. Yet unbelievably hard to manage in practice.
• cycomanic 5y ago
  The irony is that Elon Musk is who calls himself a free speech fundamentalist has been quite happy to silence people's speech if it didn't suit him. Similarly all the people calling out twitter for violating free speech never complained that protesters were thrown out of Trump rallies or that he called for beating them up. I do believe that there need to be limits on free speech and we also need to have means of equalising speech because otherwise we end up in the situation that the person with the loudest voice (the biggest resources) can say whatever they want and nobody else gets heard.
• onlyrealcuzzo 5y ago
  This is 100% true - but giving algos & bots the ability to spread disinformation on your network at low-cost and gaming networks to make it seem legit is what is dangerous. From a Twitter / YouTube / Facebook standpoint - it's easier to just block bad content than fix the above problem.
• iammru 5y ago
  100%... I lived and worked in many countries around the world and the amount of free speech we enjoy here is not common. This is why people like my parents escaped their motherland. It's surreal to me, as an immigrant, that we are trying self-limit free speech here. If you don't like what others say, then tune out, you have no right to silence other even if you abhor their ideas.
  • themitigating 5y ago
    If I ran a store that sold model trains and you can in and started yelling at something I shouldn't be able to kick you out? You may say - "Well twitter is bigger" - There are competitors and you aren't forced to use it. Or "I want to reach the largest audience" - Why should a private company spend its own resources to help you spread your message. You came from a country without freedom of speech? How would it have helped if the government just kills its enemies or arrests them on bogus charges?
• verisimi 5y ago
  But its perfectly acceptable to delete the president's account (Trump) on platforms that are perceived to open (Twitter)!
• jackallis 5y ago
  along this point, if you beleive in free speech if you have to defend speech that you don't like/disgree with/...
• consumer451 5y ago
  Please give me specific examples of exactly what you mean by "free speech."
• ladyattis 5y ago
  >Sometimes even coming to such views as "free speech is dangerous" and that "we should limit free speech" (by blocking the views I don't like). Yeah right, saying me not listening to a screaming preacher on the street is the same as the state locking them away is why I don't listen to free speech absolutists. Me having a blocklist or using an app to construct one is not an impediment to your freedom anymore than me changing the channel on my TV is an impediment to the freedom of a random news anchor editorializing. If you really want to support free speech then support the right to not listen. They go hand in hand. Stop trying to force people to be captive audiences then we might have a starting point.
• _8j50 5y ago
  Twitter and freedom of speech are unrelated topics. You don't understand freedom of speech. I can literally censor you in public and that has nothing to do with freedom of speech. Also, tell Rwandans spreading propaganda is better than not being able to say what you want (genocide and all).
• kingkawn 5y ago
  Next up on the agenda at the straw man convention…
• deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
• qgin 5y ago
  So in your model, some other random person can come along and force you to use unlimited amounts of your own resources to broadcast whatever they want to say? We have freedom of speech in that the government cannot persecute us for what we say. We do not have the right to commandeer other people’s resources without their permission to rebroadcast what we want to say.
• Tycho 5y ago
  Our entire legal system rests on the (rather obvious) principle of hearing both sides in order to find the truth, but the brain rot has somehow progressed to the point where in the media this is considered some sort of fallacy (“both-sidesism”). Lots of people want to appoint some sort of information gatekeeper, with no anticipation that one day the gatekeepers might turn against you.
• rayiner 5y ago
  In a way we're fortunate that the descent down the slippery slope happened far faster than we could have imagined. We went from "we'll only use these powers to censor the flat earthers" to country's major social media companies blacking out a damaging story about the former Vice President's son moments before the highest turnout election in American history: https://www.npr.org/2022/04/09/1091859822/more-details-emerge-in-federal-investigation-into-hunter-biden https://www.npr.org/2022/04/09/1091859822/more-details-emerg.... The basic problem with the notion of "censoring misinformation" and even "fact checking" is that the "flat earth" stuff isn't really what anyone cares about. It's the debatable stuff that people have the desire and incentive to censor. That's always the way it works out.
  • metabagel 5y ago
    France bans most election coverage just before the election. It’s to prevent misinformation from coming in at the last moment without an opportunity to verify or properly understand it. https://www.france24.com/en/20170506-france-media-rules-prohibit-election-coverage-over-weekend-presidential-poll https://www.france24.com/en/20170506-france-media-rules-proh...
    • jstream67 5y ago
      I mean thats a bit different from just blacking out anything that makes the Democrats look bad - which is whats currently happening on US Social Media platforms
      • chiggsy 5y ago
        Why do you think multi-million dollar tax paying enterprises are acting in a way that guarantees higher taxation, policies more hostile to business, and, more oversight? What do you think they stand to gain from this? Besides, I suppose, emphatically opposing the alternative? Could this be it? Perhaps the alternative side is somehow bad for their business? I strongly feel this is would explain what you claim to see, something I do not. What I actually see is that coercion is at the root of your philosophy. Your arguments, demand that you have freedom of action at the expense of others. Your issue is that you are unable to compel compliance. Unsurprising since that concept is at the root of your ideology. Quite transparently, and distastefully so.
• Aunche 5y ago
  I don't agree with Twitter's moderation, but how exactly are we losing the freedom of speech? Whiners are free to demand companies to boycott Twitter ads when they see a tweet they don't like. The companies are free to stop buying ads from Twitter. Twitter is free to appease these whiners by moderating speech the way they want it, so they don't lose out on revenue. Elon Musk is free to disagree with that business strategy and buy 10% of Twitter.
• mmaunder 5y ago
  That’s exactly right. I’ve posted here many times discussing what it was like to grow up under apartheid in South Africa. Elon grew up under that regime too. He’s the same age as me. He went to Pretoria boys high school. I went to Paarl boys high school. Similar tracks. Both highly conservative, pro apartheid and a clear demonstration of how limiting free speech enables awful regimes like the apartheid government. This is one of the strongest reasons he is a free speech absolutist. It’s incredible how many smart people in the freest country in the world are asking to have their freedoms removed without considering who may inherit those rights.
• kareemsabri 5y ago
  You're gonna get replies basically saying "but free speech is about protection from the government not corporations". This is the stock answer, even though corporations in America are generally considered to be equally if not more powerful than the government (for good reason).
• memish 5y ago
  To put an even finer point on it, you'll never ever see Xi or Putin say "I'm a free speech absolutist" or "let's have less censorship". That so many people are taking the position of authoritarians, but presenting it as though they are protecting democracy, is truly baffling to behold. Elon removing these authoritarians from twitter's leadership and employee base, and restoring free speech principles, will be the best thing we've seen for democracy in a long time.
  • mint2 5y ago
    You’ll also never see them say “I’m a freedom from property rights absolutist” as in no state or private ownership but that doesn’t mean anything either. Dictators not going to say “xyz” doesn’t really have any bearing on the merits of xyz, and that doesn’t even get into how dictators are loose with the truth and often will lie about “I’m for xyz” while violating the spirit of xyz. So in other words, what a dictator says is pretty irrelevant.
• peoplefromibiza 5y ago
  > it all started with limits on the freedom of speech. Twitter has nothing to do with freedom of speech though. Or, to put it in a non-ambiguous way, Twitter is about freedom of speech as much as Coca-Cola is about "right to food, and its variations" [1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_food https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_food
• petilon 5y ago
  I think a distinction should be made between restrictions (on speech) by government, and restrictions by private entities. The former is dangerous, the latter is necessary. Societal attitudes towards free speech have changed a lot in recent times. I believe this is related to technological advancement and the rise of social media. The advent of social media has made it too easy to spread dangerous levels of hate and false information online. Malicious individuals and groups now have the power to reach hundreds of millions instantly, at no cost to themselves. It started off innocently enough, with cat videos uploaded to YouTube, but soon extremists were taking advantage of social media for radicalization purposes, adversarial nations were spreading fake news to influence who gets elected, and others were even live-streaming mass murders. This has caused an upheaval in attitudes towards free speech. Enough is enough! There needs to be limits. Communities started imposing limits to free speech. Society — as opposed to governments — have decided that some censorship is in order. This is a natural evolution of societal norms. This particular evolution was a reaction to the excesses and abuses seen in social media. Some censorship, by private parties such as Twitter, as opposed to absolute free speech, will be the new normal. We live in a new world; the old norms no longer apply.
  • shkkmo 5y ago
    > a distinction should be made between restrictions (on speech) by government, and restrictions by private entities. The former is dangerous, the latter is necessary. Both are both. There is no country (AFAIK) in the world where there are no restrictions on speech. I think another distinction needs to be drawn: Moderation of communities that is organized and controlled by the community is structurally different from externally imposed rules and standards. There are structural power issues with the latter that need to be acknowledged and which should lead to to try to limit it where feasible.
• toyg 5y ago
  Classic situation where "Only a Sith Deals in Absolutes". In practice, there is a tension. Absolute free speech is not necessarily safe - the Weimar Republic was a time of unprecedented freedom of expression and it ended badly. The freedom paradox is real: too much freedom can result in the death of freedom, by tolerating anti-freedom movements enough for them to snowball. Also, you shouldn't assume that these "practical limits" on free speech are new, particularly for the US. In the second postwar period, airing leftist views often resulted in people being put under invasive surveillance - or worse. There is always a tension in practice, and it's about finding an acceptable set of compromises. Germany is free but you can't print Hitler's works there, and that's just fine.
• antattack 5y ago
  Speech is sending and receiving information. Speech/information needs to be processed/filtered/analyzed. People may not be equipped to deal with certain information - hence we try to manage it externally and internally. Suppressing from of information starts at early, at childhood. We try not bombard our children with all the information indiscriminately. We curate and provide age appropriate information to ensure optimal development and growth. Once a person becomes adult they are supposed to gather and process information on their own. However, even as adults we are susceptible to deception. Our judgement can be fooled, feeling can override our logic. In conclusion, I think there's a need for curation of the information/speech. Not forbidding it outright, but certainly to help humans discern facts from fiction, for example.
  • mrtksn 5y ago
    > Speech is sending and receiving information. I think that's wrong. Speech is sending signals that are converted into information. The difference is, the information can be good or bad depending on what you already have. If we go with the usual Hitler example, Hitler's speech makes people take other people into concentration camps only if they are already inclined into doing it(i.e. if you air the Hitler speech in USA, Americans don't start putting the Jews on trains). Therefore, limiting Hitler's speech is like fighting infection with painkillers when you actually need antibiotics.
• kmeisthax 5y ago
  Lots of extremists, especially in the authoritarian[0] or right-wing edges of the political compass, practice various forms of censorship. This isn't merely "let's pass a law to make it illegal to say a thing", but would also include things like harassing other people in public forae with sock-puppets, ballot-stuffing online polls to make their side look more publicly favored, flooding websites with expensive HTTP requests (DDoSing), or publishing personal or hidden information in an attempt to scare someone into not speaking (doxxing). All of the above behaviors should be considered just as censorious as vanilla-flavor state-actors censorship. Furthermore, because these behaviors nominally involve something that resembles an act of speech, people occasionally try to defend said acts on "free speech" grounds and call the curtailment of censorship acts itself a form of censorship. This is a mistake. Fringe extremists are not merely "spreading their ideas", they are chilling other people's speech. This is just as much of a danger to society as the banning of other people's views that you mentioned. [0] auth-left inclusive, fuck tankies
• enumjorge 5y ago
  > Sometimes even coming to such views as "free speech is dangerous" and that "we should limit free speech" (by blocking the views I don't like). This is such an oversimplification that it verges on being a straw man argument. You talk about authoritarian take-overs. Your problem wasn’t limitations on free speech. It was that people who didn’t care about laws got into positions of power, and enough people in that country didn’t care enough when the law was ignored. Authoritarians don’t care about precedents or laws. If a law is causing them problems they’ll change it. It happens all the time. And an ignorant or misinformed population can be easily distracted with red herrings like xenophobia and homophobia. There’s been a rise in fringe extremists in the US. Many of them are ardent supporters of Donald Trump, who benefitted tremendously from the megaphone that Twitter provided, a company that isn’t even 20 years old and yet has come to represent freedom of speech somehow and arguably helped him get elected. This is the same man who launched an all out attack on elections, one of the tenets of the democracy; a man who also threatened to cut off access to White House press briefings to any news channel that attacked him; a man who sent the police on peaceful protesters in DC just so he could do a photo-op. All of those are serious attacks on democracy, and he has faced zero consequences, Twitter or no Twitter. Why? Because his zealot supporters are too busy trying to ban books, limiting abortion and bringing back an LGBT rights as a major political topic to care. Extremism is dangerous too. Electing people who don’t care about the law is dangerous. Once those are allowed to fester and take over, democracy is already in grave danger and laws or precedents won’t provide much help.
• dukeofdoom 5y ago
  It's getting really bad here in Canada. The governments directly funds, and contributes to the media companies. And recently passed laws for all media companies to be licensed. And of course decided to deny said license to one of his strongest critics, Rebel News. Which I don't much care to watch, but I do on occasion do watch RT do get a different perspective. Just yesterday I found out that RT was blocked on youtube and removed from cable. Just crazy to me that a government thinks it has a right to decide which news organizations I'm allowed to view.
• boppo1 5y ago
  Which country? Somewhere in the Middle East?