4 ms·

It's more fundamental than that. Some forms of speech can indirectly or directly limit the speech of others. Free speech absolutism in an unachievable panacea;

It's more fundamental than that. Some forms of speech can indirectly or directly limit the speech of others. Free speech absolutism in an unachievable panacea; it is a logical fallacy.

hellfish 4y ago
The people who oppose free speech always try to redefine it this way. Freedom of speech is freedom from censorship or moderation. Not freedom from discomfort
- pixl97 4y ago
  Like the discomfort from being banned from someones private property from saying dumb crap?
  - at-w 4y ago
    Like Comcast deciding they don't want workers discussing unionizing using the internet infrastructure that they privately own. Or financial institutions like PayPal freezing and seizing your money on their "private property" because of speech they don't like. Or when AWS, Microsoft, and the largest and most powerful corporations in human history coordinated to take a separate social network offline because of speech they didn't like. Or when Twitter and Facebook coordinated to falsely label a true story "Russian disinformation" days before an election, literally preventing people from sharing it with each other privately on the world's largest communications networks. Whether Hunter Biden smoking crack with prostitutes would impact the election, or is even anyone's business, is questionable to me. But so is having billionaire tech CEOs decide what people can discuss through private communications with the express intent of suppressing information related to a political campaign. The same goes for credit card monopolies like VISA and Mastercard coordinating to destroy businesses like Mindgeek because of moralist outrage from another "side."
ibejoeb 4y ago
I'm not following you. What can I say that prevents you from saying something? That would seem to violate causality.
- zamalek 4y ago
  That causal violation is the exact problem with free speech aboslutism. "You are not allowed to criticize the CCP" is speech. "I order you to kill/hang that vice president" is speech, and the dead don't speak.
  - mh- 4y ago
    That last one would already fail the Brandenburg test [0], wouldn't it? (I'm not a lawyer.) [0] https://www.criminaldefenselawyer.com/resources/inciting-to-riot-violence-or-insurrection.html https://www.criminaldefenselawyer.com/resources/inciting-to-...
    - zamalek 4y ago
      > Brandenburg test The Brandenburg Test doesn't apply to free speech absolutism.
      - erichocean 4y ago
        Elon Musk has already said he supports unrestricted *legal* speech on Twitter, and that individual cultures should decide what that is for themselves, through their local legal system. He's not a "free speech absolutist."
        krapp 4y ago
        He calls himself a free speech absolutist, and he's already banned parody, racist but legal (in the US) speech and criticism of himself and his technical knowledge - which is more restrictive than Twitter was prior. As is the plan to "deboost" negative and hateful tweets - I'll remind the court that when Youtube did the same thing, many people here considered even demonetizing and downranking content to be censorship, and antithetical to free speech.
elgenioso 4y ago
I don't think that's true. The only way to limit speech on an algorithmicially mediated platform is via algorithms and there is no algorithm that can encode non-trivial properties of language regardless of what the AI maximalists might say to the contrary.

It's more fundamental than that. Some forms of speech can indirectly or directly limit the speech of others. Free speech absolutism in an unachievable panacea; it is a logical fallacy.

hellfish 4y ago

The people who oppose free speech always try to redefine it this way. Freedom of speech is freedom from censorship or moderation. Not freedom from discomfort

pixl97 4y ago
Like the discomfort from being banned from someones private property from saying dumb crap?
- at-w 4y ago
  Like Comcast deciding they don't want workers discussing unionizing using the internet infrastructure that they privately own. Or financial institutions like PayPal freezing and seizing your money on their "private property" because of speech they don't like. Or when AWS, Microsoft, and the largest and most powerful corporations in human history coordinated to take a separate social network offline because of speech they didn't like. Or when Twitter and Facebook coordinated to falsely label a true story "Russian disinformation" days before an election, literally preventing people from sharing it with each other privately on the world's largest communications networks. Whether Hunter Biden smoking crack with prostitutes would impact the election, or is even anyone's business, is questionable to me. But so is having billionaire tech CEOs decide what people can discuss through private communications with the express intent of suppressing information related to a political campaign. The same goes for credit card monopolies like VISA and Mastercard coordinating to destroy businesses like Mindgeek because of moralist outrage from another "side."

ibejoeb 4y ago

I'm not following you. What can I say that prevents you from saying something? That would seem to violate causality.

zamalek 4y ago
That causal violation is the exact problem with free speech aboslutism. "You are not allowed to criticize the CCP" is speech. "I order you to kill/hang that vice president" is speech, and the dead don't speak.
- mh- 4y ago
  That last one would already fail the Brandenburg test [0], wouldn't it? (I'm not a lawyer.) [0] https://www.criminaldefenselawyer.com/resources/inciting-to-riot-violence-or-insurrection.html https://www.criminaldefenselawyer.com/resources/inciting-to-...
  - zamalek 4y ago
    > Brandenburg test The Brandenburg Test doesn't apply to free speech absolutism.
    - erichocean 4y ago
      Elon Musk has already said he supports unrestricted *legal* speech on Twitter, and that individual cultures should decide what that is for themselves, through their local legal system. He's not a "free speech absolutist."
      - krapp 4y ago
        He calls himself a free speech absolutist, and he's already banned parody, racist but legal (in the US) speech and criticism of himself and his technical knowledge - which is more restrictive than Twitter was prior. As is the plan to "deboost" negative and hateful tweets - I'll remind the court that when Youtube did the same thing, many people here considered even demonetizing and downranking content to be censorship, and antithetical to free speech.

elgenioso 4y ago

I don't think that's true. The only way to limit speech on an algorithmicially mediated platform is via algorithms and there is no algorithm that can encode non-trivial properties of language regardless of what the AI maximalists might say to the contrary.