10 ms·

Court blocks NY law mandating “hateful conduct” policies by social media

104 points by hirundo 4y ago

bdw5204 4y ago
Per the Nazis v. Skokie case, the 1st Amendment protects the right to engage in hateful speech. There's no serious debate that this law is unconstitutional and the politicians who supported it showed that they either don't understand the 1st Amendment or just don't care about it. Since it also needs to be said, the fact that you have a constitutional right to say hateful things does not mean you should or that you have a right not to be judged by other people if you choose to exercise this particular right. As long as people are free to express views that almost everybody regards as reprehensible, the rest of us can feel confident that our 1st Amendment rights remain secure.
- fortran77 4y ago
  It was a more specific point that the court used in their decision: that of compelled speech. > The Court emphasized that "[b]y compelling individuals to speak a particular message, such notices 'alte[r] the content of [their] speech.'" The “notices” refer to their hate speech mitigation policies. Read the full decision that the article summarized
- Dalewyn 4y ago
  >the 1st Amendment protects the right to engage in hateful speech. It's worth going further to point out that the First Amendment (and Free Speech protections in general) exists specifically to protect and guarantee speech that someone sometime somewhere might or will find objectional for any or no reason. Non-objectional speech doesn't need Free Speech protections because there's nobody to censor non-objectional speech in the first place.
  - gadders 4y ago
    Unpopular speech is the only speech worth defending.
- perihelions 4y ago
  - "either don't understand the 1st Amendment or just don't care about it" And, transitively, don't understand or care about their civic duty to uphold and promote those values, as elected leaders. It's not a "no-op" to pass an unconstitutional law that's immediately struck down by courts. It's an erosion of norms. The norm that elected leaders uphold the constitutional order, which constrains their power; and don't seek to break out of it. The norm that the system of freedom we live under is an expensive and valuable thing (and that this is a universally shared value); not something cheap and haggle-able.
  - Dalewyn 4y ago
    >The norm that elected leaders uphold the constitutional order, which constrains their power; and don't seek to break out of it. Let's be real: When has that /ever/ been the norm? Anyone who chooses to pursue an office in governance is there to grab power or enrich themselves. No exceptions. The only question is how brazen they are about it.
    - notch898a 4y ago
      Sortition is one of those idea that when I was a young man I thought was dumb, but the older I get the more I realize elections end up with someone stupid or corrupt anyway so we me as well get a random sample of the populace to round things out. Sadly the two party elected system is probably one of those things that is difficult to impossible to break out of, as the parties will never vote to suicide themselves.
      - SQueeeeeL 4y ago
        It's actually pretty easy to break out of, historically two party democracies aren't very common. Just need a war or revolution. Now breaking it out of it without majorly messing up things for a lot of the populace, that's a little harder, but once things are already pretty awful for 98% of people a revolution starts being more realistic
      - hunter-gatherer 4y ago
- recuter 4y ago
  Such an absolutely basic thing and yet notable and increasing numbers of Americans don't seem to grasp this or are downright hostile to it now. Some strange mindfog going around convincing people these concepts are held dear by "Republicans" and therefore bad. I never would have imagined a few short years ago we'd be here.
  - SQueeeeeL 4y ago
    Most Americans probably either don't care or fundamentally disagree with the right of Nazis to say shit, but the legal system prioritizes consistency and their specific brand of morality over the public desire, that's why we have law and not chaotic lynch mobs. But there is no "benefit" to unfettered free speech other than the fact that we have unfettered free speech; it's very straightforward. Some people won't care about it.
    - tdehnel 4y ago
      The benefit is we find solutions to objectionable ideas by discussing them. The alternative is a chilling effect where people are hesitant to discuss problems for fear of getting into trouble for even coming close to saying the illegal thing.
    - goatlover 4y ago
      The benefit is to deprive the government of the power to decide which speech is allowed, which will likely depend on which party is in power, and how the cultural winds are blowing. Which might be in your preferred flavor today, but not tomorrow. If you're a progressive, do you really want to risk curtailing speech on the possibility that religious conservatives will get a chance to wield that power? We've seen what that's like in the past.
  - Gigachad 4y ago
    You’d think the population would be moving the opposite way when you look at the UK and see people being arrested for rude tweets. Or that one UK woman arrested because the police suspected she controlled an account which posted a mean post on kiwifarms (she didn’t, and the police had no evidence to begin with).
- WalterBright 4y ago
  > they either don't understand the 1st Amendment or just don't care about it I figure they know it is unconstitutional and will be overturned by the courts, but they will still get brownie points from their supporters for trying.
  - puffoflogic 4y ago
    And if in the meantime they turn their supporters against the rule of law, why, that's just a bonus to them!
- jl6 4y ago
  > Since it also needs to be said, the fact that you have a constitutional right to say hateful things does not mean you should or that you have a right not to be judged by other people if you choose to exercise this particular right. This is the interesting part of the debate. It is commonly stated that freedom of speech doesn’t equal freedom from consequences, and it’s hard to imagine a law that could guarantee anyone freedom from the consequences of their speech, but is there a point where the consequences become disproportionate? The first amendment only limits government, but there are private entities which have government-like powers in some circumstances. For example, the church. Historically if you said something the church didn’t like, you might risk shunning, or worse. People have lost livelihoods and been shut out of civic society for using speech in opposition to religious authority. Is that a legitimate and proportionate consequence of speech? The church in America is in decline, but religiosity has found new homes amongst political mobs, who can wield their powers against free speech. They can put pressure on the private companies that act as the government of the internet. All while acting in a private, non-governmental capacity, so it’s not censorship, it’s just consequences, right? Should we seek to limit the consequences that churches can impose?
  - puffoflogic 4y ago
    > It is commonly stated that freedom of speech doesn’t equal freedom from consequences, Like many commonly stated things, this is completely wrong. Freedom from consequences is the only possible thing that "freedom of speech" could mean. Essentially every living person has some way of communicating and so if freedom of speech weren't freedom from consequences, then every living person has freedom of speech definitionally. "Freedom of speech" wouldn't mean anything then. Persons living under the most oppressive regime would, by this flawed definition, have perfect freedom of speech. The common but wrong idea stems from fundamentally confusing "freedom of speech" and "the first amendment to the United States Constitution". What it's attempting to say is that the 1A doesn't guarantee that purely private actors can't find a way to penalize you for your speech. However, what it gets wrong is that such penalties would still be an abrogation of freedom of speech, but a kind of freedom of speech which isn't protected by 1A. Just because that kind of freedom of speech [against private actors] isn't guaranteed by 1A, doesn't mean it's not valuable. Many of us believe this kind of freedom of speech is also valuable.
GalenErso 4y ago
On one hand, as a heterosexual, white, culturally Christian and conventionally attractive man raised in a middle class neighborhood, I've never been the victim of hateful speech. I cannot fully relate to those who have been. My family, friends, and coworkers are all from similarly conventional backgrounds. I am thus privileged, in a certain way. On the other hand, I cannot help but think that too many people have become soft these days. I am not old enough to remember a time before the late 90s, nor do I glorify a forgotten "Golden Age". But, when I occasionally watch old movies, documentaries, and TV shows, it is clear that people used to have a much thicker skin. This is not to say that I believe that free speech shouldn't have reasonable constraints. I am not denying the emotional impact that words can have on people, or the potential unhealthiness of excess emotional fortitude. But it is to say that it would be misguided and, in my humble opinion, a disservice to future generations to envelop them in a sanitized cocoon of sterile experiences, where they cannot be uncomfortable. Because the real world is full of colorful characters, and surprises, generally speaking. Like an immune system that grows weaker when it goes too long without exposure to viruses and bacteria, I believe that a person's character can and in a certain measure must be allowed to be steeled and sharpened by the unexpected, the random, and, perhaps, the uncomfortable.
- swatcoder 4y ago
  Individuals, generations, and societies develop ideas and need to test them out for themselves. Over the second half of the twentieth century, in the shadow of a society that waged two world wars, annihilated cities with fire bombings and nuclear weapons, and staged a globally existential Cold War between "good" and "evil", the "peace and love" hypothesis felt really enticing: maybe we could all just be nice to each other and make sure everybody had what they needed and everything would be better. Gen X and Millenial kids learned it from our parents, got support from hippie and urban boomers in institutionalizing it through politics, science, and medicine and embedded that idea deeply in the children that came behind us. Now, we're working through the experiment. We'll see how it goes. It's not a sure thing.
- trpv 4y ago
  Seems like you think you’re exempt from being a victim of hate because of your demographics, and likewise that others of certain demographics, whatever they may be, are implicitly victims of it. There are white, heterosexual, etc (the list of ways people say they privileged is ever expanding lol) men who have been on the receiving end of hateful speech because they are white, heterosexual, etc. and there are black or gay men who have never been personally attacked based on that identity. But yeah, shielding yourself from speech or anything else you may find uncomfortable may make you feel better in the moment, but hurts you in the long term
TrispusAttucks 4y ago
Liberty is meaningless where the right to utter one's thoughts and opinions has ceased to exist. That, of all rights, is the dread of tyrants. It is the right which they first of all strike down. They know its power. Thrones, dominions, principalities, and powers, founded in injustice and wrong, are sure to tremble, if men are allowed to reason. ~ Frederick Douglass
- jxramos 4y ago
  wow, that's heavy duty.
nostromo 4y ago
> Many thanks to FIRE for representing me in this case. I used to donate to the ACLU, but they have completely lost their way. I'd encourage more people who care about preserving free speech and expression to give money to FIRE. They are the new ACLU and need financial resources to do what the ACLU used to do. https://www.thefire.org/ https://www.thefire.org/
- gsk22 4y ago
  How has the ACLU lost its way? Is there a specific incident that happened? I don't follow these things too closely, but my perception is they continue to do the same kind of work they always have.
  - LudwigNagasena 4y ago
    Once a Bastion of Free Speech, the A.C.L.U. Faces an Identity Crisis https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/06/us/aclu-free-speech.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/06/us/aclu-free-speech.html
    - nostromo 4y ago
      Also: The ACLU Has Lost Its Way https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/05/aclu-johnny-depp-amber-heard-trial/629808/ https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/05/aclu-johnn... The ACLU taking donations to silently support Amber Heard suing Johnny Depp is so far afield of their mission it’s unforgivable.
  - screye 4y ago
    Here are a couple of reference documents [1][2] tl;dr : the ACLU used to be a free speech absolutist organization to the point of self-sabotage. (eg: Jewish ACLU lawyers defending Neo-Nazis). In that sense, it went from a libertarian organization to a progressive activist organization that now supports cases that suppress civil liberties as long as the cause supports their (faux activist?) progressive agenda. [1]https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/05/aclu-johnny-depp-amber-heard-trial/629808/ https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/05/aclu-johnn... [2]https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/06/us/aclu-free-speech.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/06/us/aclu-free-speech.html

104 points by hirundo 4y ago

Per the Nazis v. Skokie case, the 1st Amendment protects the right to engage in hateful speech. There's no serious debate that this law is unconstitutional and the politicians who supported it showed that they either don't understand the 1st Amendment or just don't care about it. Since it also needs to be said, the fact that you have a constitutional right to say hateful things does not mean you should or that you have a right not to be judged by other people if you choose to exercise this particular right. As long as people are free to express views that almost everybody regards as reprehensible, the rest of us can feel confident that our 1st Amendment rights remain secure.

fortran77 4y ago
It was a more specific point that the court used in their decision: that of compelled speech. > The Court emphasized that "[b]y compelling individuals to speak a particular message, such notices 'alte[r] the content of [their] speech.'" The “notices” refer to their hate speech mitigation policies. Read the full decision that the article summarized
Dalewyn 4y ago
>the 1st Amendment protects the right to engage in hateful speech. It's worth going further to point out that the First Amendment (and Free Speech protections in general) exists specifically to protect and guarantee speech that someone sometime somewhere might or will find objectional for any or no reason. Non-objectional speech doesn't need Free Speech protections because there's nobody to censor non-objectional speech in the first place.
- gadders 4y ago
  Unpopular speech is the only speech worth defending.
perihelions 4y ago
- "either don't understand the 1st Amendment or just don't care about it" And, transitively, don't understand or care about their civic duty to uphold and promote those values, as elected leaders. It's not a "no-op" to pass an unconstitutional law that's immediately struck down by courts. It's an erosion of norms. The norm that elected leaders uphold the constitutional order, which constrains their power; and don't seek to break out of it. The norm that the system of freedom we live under is an expensive and valuable thing (and that this is a universally shared value); not something cheap and haggle-able.
- Dalewyn 4y ago
  >The norm that elected leaders uphold the constitutional order, which constrains their power; and don't seek to break out of it. Let's be real: When has that /ever/ been the norm? Anyone who chooses to pursue an office in governance is there to grab power or enrich themselves. No exceptions. The only question is how brazen they are about it.
  - notch898a 4y ago
    Sortition is one of those idea that when I was a young man I thought was dumb, but the older I get the more I realize elections end up with someone stupid or corrupt anyway so we me as well get a random sample of the populace to round things out. Sadly the two party elected system is probably one of those things that is difficult to impossible to break out of, as the parties will never vote to suicide themselves.
    - SQueeeeeL 4y ago
      It's actually pretty easy to break out of, historically two party democracies aren't very common. Just need a war or revolution. Now breaking it out of it without majorly messing up things for a lot of the populace, that's a little harder, but once things are already pretty awful for 98% of people a revolution starts being more realistic
    - hunter-gatherer 4y ago
recuter 4y ago
Such an absolutely basic thing and yet notable and increasing numbers of Americans don't seem to grasp this or are downright hostile to it now. Some strange mindfog going around convincing people these concepts are held dear by "Republicans" and therefore bad. I never would have imagined a few short years ago we'd be here.
- SQueeeeeL 4y ago
  Most Americans probably either don't care or fundamentally disagree with the right of Nazis to say shit, but the legal system prioritizes consistency and their specific brand of morality over the public desire, that's why we have law and not chaotic lynch mobs. But there is no "benefit" to unfettered free speech other than the fact that we have unfettered free speech; it's very straightforward. Some people won't care about it.
  - tdehnel 4y ago
    The benefit is we find solutions to objectionable ideas by discussing them. The alternative is a chilling effect where people are hesitant to discuss problems for fear of getting into trouble for even coming close to saying the illegal thing.
  - goatlover 4y ago
    The benefit is to deprive the government of the power to decide which speech is allowed, which will likely depend on which party is in power, and how the cultural winds are blowing. Which might be in your preferred flavor today, but not tomorrow. If you're a progressive, do you really want to risk curtailing speech on the possibility that religious conservatives will get a chance to wield that power? We've seen what that's like in the past.
- Gigachad 4y ago
  You’d think the population would be moving the opposite way when you look at the UK and see people being arrested for rude tweets. Or that one UK woman arrested because the police suspected she controlled an account which posted a mean post on kiwifarms (she didn’t, and the police had no evidence to begin with).
WalterBright 4y ago
> they either don't understand the 1st Amendment or just don't care about it I figure they know it is unconstitutional and will be overturned by the courts, but they will still get brownie points from their supporters for trying.
- puffoflogic 4y ago
  And if in the meantime they turn their supporters against the rule of law, why, that's just a bonus to them!
jl6 4y ago
> Since it also needs to be said, the fact that you have a constitutional right to say hateful things does not mean you should or that you have a right not to be judged by other people if you choose to exercise this particular right. This is the interesting part of the debate. It is commonly stated that freedom of speech doesn’t equal freedom from consequences, and it’s hard to imagine a law that could guarantee anyone freedom from the consequences of their speech, but is there a point where the consequences become disproportionate? The first amendment only limits government, but there are private entities which have government-like powers in some circumstances. For example, the church. Historically if you said something the church didn’t like, you might risk shunning, or worse. People have lost livelihoods and been shut out of civic society for using speech in opposition to religious authority. Is that a legitimate and proportionate consequence of speech? The church in America is in decline, but religiosity has found new homes amongst political mobs, who can wield their powers against free speech. They can put pressure on the private companies that act as the government of the internet. All while acting in a private, non-governmental capacity, so it’s not censorship, it’s just consequences, right? Should we seek to limit the consequences that churches can impose?
- puffoflogic 4y ago
  > It is commonly stated that freedom of speech doesn’t equal freedom from consequences, Like many commonly stated things, this is completely wrong. Freedom from consequences is the only possible thing that "freedom of speech" could mean. Essentially every living person has some way of communicating and so if freedom of speech weren't freedom from consequences, then every living person has freedom of speech definitionally. "Freedom of speech" wouldn't mean anything then. Persons living under the most oppressive regime would, by this flawed definition, have perfect freedom of speech. The common but wrong idea stems from fundamentally confusing "freedom of speech" and "the first amendment to the United States Constitution". What it's attempting to say is that the 1A doesn't guarantee that purely private actors can't find a way to penalize you for your speech. However, what it gets wrong is that such penalties would still be an abrogation of freedom of speech, but a kind of freedom of speech which isn't protected by 1A. Just because that kind of freedom of speech [against private actors] isn't guaranteed by 1A, doesn't mean it's not valuable. Many of us believe this kind of freedom of speech is also valuable.

GalenErso 4y ago

On one hand, as a heterosexual, white, culturally Christian and conventionally attractive man raised in a middle class neighborhood, I've never been the victim of hateful speech. I cannot fully relate to those who have been. My family, friends, and coworkers are all from similarly conventional backgrounds. I am thus privileged, in a certain way. On the other hand, I cannot help but think that too many people have become soft these days. I am not old enough to remember a time before the late 90s, nor do I glorify a forgotten "Golden Age". But, when I occasionally watch old movies, documentaries, and TV shows, it is clear that people used to have a much thicker skin. This is not to say that I believe that free speech shouldn't have reasonable constraints. I am not denying the emotional impact that words can have on people, or the potential unhealthiness of excess emotional fortitude. But it is to say that it would be misguided and, in my humble opinion, a disservice to future generations to envelop them in a sanitized cocoon of sterile experiences, where they cannot be uncomfortable. Because the real world is full of colorful characters, and surprises, generally speaking. Like an immune system that grows weaker when it goes too long without exposure to viruses and bacteria, I believe that a person's character can and in a certain measure must be allowed to be steeled and sharpened by the unexpected, the random, and, perhaps, the uncomfortable.

swatcoder 4y ago
Individuals, generations, and societies develop ideas and need to test them out for themselves. Over the second half of the twentieth century, in the shadow of a society that waged two world wars, annihilated cities with fire bombings and nuclear weapons, and staged a globally existential Cold War between "good" and "evil", the "peace and love" hypothesis felt really enticing: maybe we could all just be nice to each other and make sure everybody had what they needed and everything would be better. Gen X and Millenial kids learned it from our parents, got support from hippie and urban boomers in institutionalizing it through politics, science, and medicine and embedded that idea deeply in the children that came behind us. Now, we're working through the experiment. We'll see how it goes. It's not a sure thing.
trpv 4y ago
Seems like you think you’re exempt from being a victim of hate because of your demographics, and likewise that others of certain demographics, whatever they may be, are implicitly victims of it. There are white, heterosexual, etc (the list of ways people say they privileged is ever expanding lol) men who have been on the receiving end of hateful speech because they are white, heterosexual, etc. and there are black or gay men who have never been personally attacked based on that identity. But yeah, shielding yourself from speech or anything else you may find uncomfortable may make you feel better in the moment, but hurts you in the long term

TrispusAttucks 4y ago

Liberty is meaningless where the right to utter one's thoughts and opinions has ceased to exist. That, of all rights, is the dread of tyrants. It is the right which they first of all strike down. They know its power. Thrones, dominions, principalities, and powers, founded in injustice and wrong, are sure to tremble, if men are allowed to reason. ~ Frederick Douglass

jxramos 4y ago
wow, that's heavy duty.

nostromo 4y ago

> Many thanks to FIRE for representing me in this case. I used to donate to the ACLU, but they have completely lost their way. I'd encourage more people who care about preserving free speech and expression to give money to FIRE. They are the new ACLU and need financial resources to do what the ACLU used to do. https://www.thefire.org/ https://www.thefire.org/

gsk22 4y ago
How has the ACLU lost its way? Is there a specific incident that happened? I don't follow these things too closely, but my perception is they continue to do the same kind of work they always have.
- LudwigNagasena 4y ago
  Once a Bastion of Free Speech, the A.C.L.U. Faces an Identity Crisis https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/06/us/aclu-free-speech.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/06/us/aclu-free-speech.html
  - nostromo 4y ago
    Also: The ACLU Has Lost Its Way https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/05/aclu-johnny-depp-amber-heard-trial/629808/ https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/05/aclu-johnn... The ACLU taking donations to silently support Amber Heard suing Johnny Depp is so far afield of their mission it’s unforgivable.
- screye 4y ago
  Here are a couple of reference documents [1][2] tl;dr : the ACLU used to be a free speech absolutist organization to the point of self-sabotage. (eg: Jewish ACLU lawyers defending Neo-Nazis). In that sense, it went from a libertarian organization to a progressive activist organization that now supports cases that suppress civil liberties as long as the cause supports their (faux activist?) progressive agenda. [1]https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/05/aclu-johnny-depp-amber-heard-trial/629808/ https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/05/aclu-johnn... [2]https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/06/us/aclu-free-speech.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/06/us/aclu-free-speech.html