5 ms·

I don't think that most of the people who equate hate speech with violence are literally requesting assualt charges be brought. They are calling for boycotts an

I don't think that most of the people who equate hate speech with violence are literally requesting assualt charges be brought. They are calling for boycotts and de-platforming, both of which fall well within the bounds of the "marketplace of ideas." While there is indeed no right to not be offended, there is also no right to be listened to, and no right to artificially amplify your speech on someone else's dime. We live in a world where the mechanisms of mass communication are held in private hands---there is no digital public square, regardless of what techno-libertarians might have you believe. So there are speech winners and there are speech losers, chosen generally by capital. If you want to change that and have a public platform, you'll have to consider the digital equivalent of communism. Until then, you'll have to live with mass suppression of speech just as you live with mass amplification of it. They are two sides of the same coin.

giantg2 4y ago
They may not be requesting assault charges, but they may be requesting pain and suffering compensation, or using "unkind" comments as leverage in a divorce. Edit: Why disagree?
- vannevar 4y ago
  I didn't downvote you, but I haven't heard of any kind of mass movement to get pain and suffering damages from Donald Trump's tweets, as painful as they were to endure. If you're talking about libel, that's a separate thing, and has been around since before the First Amendment. If you publish untrue things and they harm someone, of course you can (and should) be held liable for your words. Divorce is also a different situation, where someone's words may be fair game as evidence of actions and character, depending on the circumstances.
  - giantg2 4y ago
    Things like harassment, or intentional infliction of emotional distress can be a basis for pain and suffering lawsuits. https://www.forbes.com/advisor/legal/personal-injury/suing-emotional-distress/ https://www.forbes.com/advisor/legal/personal-injury/suing-e... Things like insults, shaming, and verbal abuse are part of emotional abuse in divorce cases. These need not be evidence of actions or character. These can be used for an at fault divorce. What is consided to br an insult or shaming can vary greatly on perspective. Not to mention, the court may not stick ro just these examples and could include other things that makes the other person feel bad - "I hate this meal. Why do you always make this?" https://www.jerkinsfamilylaw.com/emotional-abuse-and-divorce--how-do-you-prove-it-and-what-will-it-mean https://www.jerkinsfamilylaw.com/emotional-abuse-and-divorce...
    - vannevar 4y ago
      Again, those are legal principles that have been enshrined in law for a long time. The article does not address them, which leads me to believe the author was thinking of more general cases of offensive speech, like the campus speaker example he offers, and not specific cases of verbal abuse. There may be cases where people are urging broader scope for those laws, which have a pretty high bar as the lawyer commented earlier in the thread. But most of the debate around offensive speech focuses on the issue of access to platforms. When it comes to public universities, there is a legitimate question, since a publicly funded university may be considered a state actor. But when it comes to private services like social media where it seem most of the controversy lies, they're free to set any rules they want. And unsurprisingly, their terms of service generally give them broad discretion on who they let use their service.
      - giantg2 4y ago
        "When speech causes emotional or mental pain, the offended parties are morally entitled to nothing in the form of compensation from or punishment for the offender." Considering this is repeated a couple times by the author, it seems they are talking about a general statement and not a narrow circumstance, even if they're using a specific example. It's important to point out that the statement above is not universally true, or if it is, then our laws are immoral. "Again, those are legal principles that have been enshrined in law for a long time." “When we do become offended, as we all will, we must settle for responding with criticism or contempt, and stop short of demanding that the offender be punished or required to make restitution,” It seems to me that restitution and punishment would include those leveled by the legal system. Simply because something has be law for a long time does not make it off limits to discussion, especially if it's application/interpretation has changed over that time.
        vannevar 4y ago
        These are fair points if we read the article as a criticism of existing law. I didn't read it that way, mostly because of the current political context where "cancel culture" is a big issue. But I can certainly see how it can be taken that way. In that case, I can only say that I would strongly disagree that speech alone should never be actionable, there are just too many obvious exceptions such as the ones we've talked about here (libel, intentional infliction of emotional distress, harassment). Laws evolve for a reason. They are not academic exercises in philosophy, they arise from experience.
autokad 4y ago
> I don't think that most of the people who equate hate speech with violence are literally requesting assualt charges be brought First off, they are. but if you are saying: loose your job and ability to make a living, losing your ability to speak in public, fuck me give me those charges then! you are backing tyrannical ideas while trying to pretend you are just being reasonable.
- vannevar 4y ago
  The tyranny isn't coming from me, it's coming from the people that own the company that's firing you. And the "tyrannical idea" you're referring to is called capitalism, and it has its upsides and its downsides. Don't shoot the messenger.
  - autokad 4y ago
    It appears that you are engaging in a logical fallacy by utilizing capitalism, which I assume is not something you hold in high regard, to silence someone's perspective during a discussion and attributing the blame to capitalism. Capitalism is an economic system in which the means of production, distribution, and exchange are primarily owned and controlled by individuals and private companies rather than by the government or public institutions. None of the things mentioned above are related to capitalism's coverage of free speech. It seems that your intention is to suppress those who hold differing opinions, and you are using the assumption that the silenced individuals support capitalism to justify your actions.
    - vannevar 4y ago
      A logical fallacy is a flawed argument that can be revealed by reasoning. For instance, someone suggesting that attributing blame to capitalism is a way to silence another's speech. That is a logical fallacy, because it omits any explanation of how such an attribution could silence another person. :-) Seriously though, do you not see how private ownership of communication services impacts the question of who is allowed to use those services? And that if there were a truly public service, how that would dramatically change the situation with respect to First Amendment rights? For the record, I'm a huge fan of capitalism. But it surprises me how many people don't understand that it has drawbacks, and that we should be honest with ourselves about those drawbacks. It's ok to say that you're pro-capitalism but that you also think that the Internet (or at least some of it) should be a public utility, for instance.
RajT88 4y ago
> I don't think that most of the people who equate hate speech with violence are literally requesting assualt charges be brought. Right. I can't think of anyone I have come across in liberal media. But you can always dig someone up that takes any given position. > While there is indeed no right to not be offended, there is also no right to be listened to, and no right to artificially amplify your speech on someone else's dime. We live in a world where the mechanisms of mass communication are held in private hands---there is no digital public square, regardless of what techno-libertarians might have you believe. All correct. The people who want it to be one way or the other (depending on their political leanings) usually are conflating constitutional protections from the government as being applicable to/from everyone and everything else. If you're screaming on Twitter that (some racial group) is bad, and people tell you to shut up, they are allowed to do so under the first amendment. You're allowed to do so under the first amendment. Twitter can totally ban you based on what they deem acceptable behavior, because the first amendment doesn't regulate private companies (just the government). If you're calling for the extermination of that particular group, the government can charge you under US Code for inciting violence: https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/373 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/373 ...But you have to prove intent, which is notoriously hard to do, and notoriously easy to get off scott-free from. ("I was being bombastic, I didn't think anyone would LITERALLY try and exterminate said group")
a_shovel 4y ago
> They are calling for boycotts and de-platforming, both of which fall well within the bounds of the "marketplace of ideas." This is a really obvious idea that people seem to have a lot of trouble understanding, especially when the framing of the conversation drifts toward "cancel culture".
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
tomjen3 4y ago
>While there is indeed no right to not be offended, there is also no right to be listened to, and no right to artificially amplify your speech on someone else's dime When you prevent somebody from being on a platform, you also prevent others from hearing what that person has to say. As for amplification, it is not amplification to show me your tweets with #stabledifussion when that is what I search for - it is the entire point of Twitter.
- vannevar 4y ago
  It absolutely is amplification---without Twitter, there would be no tweet to search for. And never forget, the actual point of Twitter is to deliver value to its shareholders.
  - tomjen3 4y ago
    Twitter is now a private company, but that is besides the point, as it would only provide value to whomever owns it people use it, and they only do that if they can get access to what they value. And no, to be amplification, Twitter would have to boost certain tweets artificially. It is very unartificial when I get results for searching. Otherwise it is also boosting if I use the municipal library to checkout a book, or buy it on Amazon, at which point amplification is meaningless.
    - vannevar 4y ago
      You're taking for granted the existence of communication services like Twitter. Twitter is amplification. You can't walk out your front door and give a speech that millions of people instantly have access to. You can only do that because of the existence of private services like Twitter. And the reality is that you have no inherent right to use those services, they can exclude you from them for any reason they like. Libraries are also amplification, but they are generally public. When a book is banned from a library, it potentially violates the First Amendment. Twitter is not public, so when a user is banned from Twitter, the First Amendment does not apply. If and when we have a government-operated Twitter, it will have to offer equal access to everyone, and it will have to tolerate any speech that falls under First Amendment protection. But until then, you'll have to live with the possibility that the private services you use will kick you off because they don't like what you say.
commandlinefan 4y ago
> I don't think that most of the people who equate hate speech with violence are literally requesting assualt charges be brought Well, they're literally doing this in the UK - people have and are being arrested for offensive speech.
- gallopingcomp 4y ago
  And sometimes fined, but also sometimes having their convictions overturned - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hate_speech_laws_in_the_United_Kingdom https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hate_speech_laws_in_the_Unit... Not “literally” the same as assault charges though - “public order” laws have a long sordid history of their own.
RobotToaster 4y ago
If you can lose your job for what you say, only the independently wealthy have freedom of speech.
- vannevar 4y ago
  Now you're getting it. Why do you think they call it "fuck you money?"
rootusrootus 4y ago
You can't really call it a marketplace of ideas, then, if your response is [metaphorically] a SLAPP. E.g. people weren't just critical of Justine Sacco, they tried to destroy her. Tell me again who the bad guys are?
- anigbrowl 4y ago
  So what you dislike is groups of people coordinating their speech, it appears. How is this any different from coordination using price signals?
  - rootusrootus 4y ago
    So you're okay with mob justice, then? You feel pretty confident they'll never come for you?
    - anigbrowl 4y ago
      The courteous response would be to answer my question rather than deflecting from it. But since you ask, I am not okay with it in many contexts and my confidence estimates are applied to individual situations rather than being general. I have had experience of being attacked by mobs, both online and physically. I have scars from being kicked in the head and stabbed in the leg during such an attack. I've separately been arrested and jailed on specious charges over political activity (more than once) and obtained dismissal of charges in court. And I have been the target of both verbal and physical violence on many, many occasions, often both on the same occasion. So I come at this question with very extensive first hand knowledge of how such arguments can play out. So now, would you care to respond to the question I asked: how do you think coordinated speech in a marketplace of ideas differs from coordination of buying or selling in response to price signals?
- Zetice 4y ago
  How should a marketplace of ideas work, then?
  - 4y ago
brandonmenc 4y ago
> If you want to change that and have a public platform, you'll have to consider the digital equivalent of communism. Or just like, new regulations on the giant corporations operating these services? No need to go as far as communism.

giantg2 4y ago

They may not be requesting assault charges, but they may be requesting pain and suffering compensation, or using "unkind" comments as leverage in a divorce. Edit: Why disagree?

vannevar 4y ago
I didn't downvote you, but I haven't heard of any kind of mass movement to get pain and suffering damages from Donald Trump's tweets, as painful as they were to endure. If you're talking about libel, that's a separate thing, and has been around since before the First Amendment. If you publish untrue things and they harm someone, of course you can (and should) be held liable for your words. Divorce is also a different situation, where someone's words may be fair game as evidence of actions and character, depending on the circumstances.
- giantg2 4y ago
  Things like harassment, or intentional infliction of emotional distress can be a basis for pain and suffering lawsuits. https://www.forbes.com/advisor/legal/personal-injury/suing-emotional-distress/ https://www.forbes.com/advisor/legal/personal-injury/suing-e... Things like insults, shaming, and verbal abuse are part of emotional abuse in divorce cases. These need not be evidence of actions or character. These can be used for an at fault divorce. What is consided to br an insult or shaming can vary greatly on perspective. Not to mention, the court may not stick ro just these examples and could include other things that makes the other person feel bad - "I hate this meal. Why do you always make this?" https://www.jerkinsfamilylaw.com/emotional-abuse-and-divorce--how-do-you-prove-it-and-what-will-it-mean https://www.jerkinsfamilylaw.com/emotional-abuse-and-divorce...
  - vannevar 4y ago
    Again, those are legal principles that have been enshrined in law for a long time. The article does not address them, which leads me to believe the author was thinking of more general cases of offensive speech, like the campus speaker example he offers, and not specific cases of verbal abuse. There may be cases where people are urging broader scope for those laws, which have a pretty high bar as the lawyer commented earlier in the thread. But most of the debate around offensive speech focuses on the issue of access to platforms. When it comes to public universities, there is a legitimate question, since a publicly funded university may be considered a state actor. But when it comes to private services like social media where it seem most of the controversy lies, they're free to set any rules they want. And unsurprisingly, their terms of service generally give them broad discretion on who they let use their service.
    - giantg2 4y ago
      "When speech causes emotional or mental pain, the offended parties are morally entitled to nothing in the form of compensation from or punishment for the offender." Considering this is repeated a couple times by the author, it seems they are talking about a general statement and not a narrow circumstance, even if they're using a specific example. It's important to point out that the statement above is not universally true, or if it is, then our laws are immoral. "Again, those are legal principles that have been enshrined in law for a long time." “When we do become offended, as we all will, we must settle for responding with criticism or contempt, and stop short of demanding that the offender be punished or required to make restitution,” It seems to me that restitution and punishment would include those leveled by the legal system. Simply because something has be law for a long time does not make it off limits to discussion, especially if it's application/interpretation has changed over that time.
      - vannevar 4y ago
        These are fair points if we read the article as a criticism of existing law. I didn't read it that way, mostly because of the current political context where "cancel culture" is a big issue. But I can certainly see how it can be taken that way. In that case, I can only say that I would strongly disagree that speech alone should never be actionable, there are just too many obvious exceptions such as the ones we've talked about here (libel, intentional infliction of emotional distress, harassment). Laws evolve for a reason. They are not academic exercises in philosophy, they arise from experience.

autokad 4y ago

> I don't think that most of the people who equate hate speech with violence are literally requesting assualt charges be brought First off, they are. but if you are saying: loose your job and ability to make a living, losing your ability to speak in public, fuck me give me those charges then! you are backing tyrannical ideas while trying to pretend you are just being reasonable.

vannevar 4y ago
The tyranny isn't coming from me, it's coming from the people that own the company that's firing you. And the "tyrannical idea" you're referring to is called capitalism, and it has its upsides and its downsides. Don't shoot the messenger.
- autokad 4y ago
  It appears that you are engaging in a logical fallacy by utilizing capitalism, which I assume is not something you hold in high regard, to silence someone's perspective during a discussion and attributing the blame to capitalism. Capitalism is an economic system in which the means of production, distribution, and exchange are primarily owned and controlled by individuals and private companies rather than by the government or public institutions. None of the things mentioned above are related to capitalism's coverage of free speech. It seems that your intention is to suppress those who hold differing opinions, and you are using the assumption that the silenced individuals support capitalism to justify your actions.
  - vannevar 4y ago
    A logical fallacy is a flawed argument that can be revealed by reasoning. For instance, someone suggesting that attributing blame to capitalism is a way to silence another's speech. That is a logical fallacy, because it omits any explanation of how such an attribution could silence another person. :-) Seriously though, do you not see how private ownership of communication services impacts the question of who is allowed to use those services? And that if there were a truly public service, how that would dramatically change the situation with respect to First Amendment rights? For the record, I'm a huge fan of capitalism. But it surprises me how many people don't understand that it has drawbacks, and that we should be honest with ourselves about those drawbacks. It's ok to say that you're pro-capitalism but that you also think that the Internet (or at least some of it) should be a public utility, for instance.

RajT88 4y ago

> I don't think that most of the people who equate hate speech with violence are literally requesting assualt charges be brought. Right. I can't think of anyone I have come across in liberal media. But you can always dig someone up that takes any given position. > While there is indeed no right to not be offended, there is also no right to be listened to, and no right to artificially amplify your speech on someone else's dime. We live in a world where the mechanisms of mass communication are held in private hands---there is no digital public square, regardless of what techno-libertarians might have you believe. All correct. The people who want it to be one way or the other (depending on their political leanings) usually are conflating constitutional protections from the government as being applicable to/from everyone and everything else. If you're screaming on Twitter that (some racial group) is bad, and people tell you to shut up, they are allowed to do so under the first amendment. You're allowed to do so under the first amendment. Twitter can totally ban you based on what they deem acceptable behavior, because the first amendment doesn't regulate private companies (just the government). If you're calling for the extermination of that particular group, the government can charge you under US Code for inciting violence: https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/373 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/373 ...But you have to prove intent, which is notoriously hard to do, and notoriously easy to get off scott-free from. ("I was being bombastic, I didn't think anyone would LITERALLY try and exterminate said group")

a_shovel 4y ago

> They are calling for boycotts and de-platforming, both of which fall well within the bounds of the "marketplace of ideas." This is a really obvious idea that people seem to have a lot of trouble understanding, especially when the framing of the conversation drifts toward "cancel culture".

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

tomjen3 4y ago

>While there is indeed no right to not be offended, there is also no right to be listened to, and no right to artificially amplify your speech on someone else's dime When you prevent somebody from being on a platform, you also prevent others from hearing what that person has to say. As for amplification, it is not amplification to show me your tweets with #stabledifussion when that is what I search for - it is the entire point of Twitter.

vannevar 4y ago
It absolutely is amplification---without Twitter, there would be no tweet to search for. And never forget, the actual point of Twitter is to deliver value to its shareholders.
- tomjen3 4y ago
  Twitter is now a private company, but that is besides the point, as it would only provide value to whomever owns it people use it, and they only do that if they can get access to what they value. And no, to be amplification, Twitter would have to boost certain tweets artificially. It is very unartificial when I get results for searching. Otherwise it is also boosting if I use the municipal library to checkout a book, or buy it on Amazon, at which point amplification is meaningless.
  - vannevar 4y ago
    You're taking for granted the existence of communication services like Twitter. Twitter is amplification. You can't walk out your front door and give a speech that millions of people instantly have access to. You can only do that because of the existence of private services like Twitter. And the reality is that you have no inherent right to use those services, they can exclude you from them for any reason they like. Libraries are also amplification, but they are generally public. When a book is banned from a library, it potentially violates the First Amendment. Twitter is not public, so when a user is banned from Twitter, the First Amendment does not apply. If and when we have a government-operated Twitter, it will have to offer equal access to everyone, and it will have to tolerate any speech that falls under First Amendment protection. But until then, you'll have to live with the possibility that the private services you use will kick you off because they don't like what you say.

commandlinefan 4y ago

> I don't think that most of the people who equate hate speech with violence are literally requesting assualt charges be brought Well, they're literally doing this in the UK - people have and are being arrested for offensive speech.

gallopingcomp 4y ago
And sometimes fined, but also sometimes having their convictions overturned - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hate_speech_laws_in_the_United_Kingdom https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hate_speech_laws_in_the_Unit... Not “literally” the same as assault charges though - “public order” laws have a long sordid history of their own.

RobotToaster 4y ago

If you can lose your job for what you say, only the independently wealthy have freedom of speech.

vannevar 4y ago
Now you're getting it. Why do you think they call it "fuck you money?"

rootusrootus 4y ago

You can't really call it a marketplace of ideas, then, if your response is [metaphorically] a SLAPP. E.g. people weren't just critical of Justine Sacco, they tried to destroy her. Tell me again who the bad guys are?

anigbrowl 4y ago
So what you dislike is groups of people coordinating their speech, it appears. How is this any different from coordination using price signals?
- rootusrootus 4y ago
  So you're okay with mob justice, then? You feel pretty confident they'll never come for you?
  - anigbrowl 4y ago
    The courteous response would be to answer my question rather than deflecting from it. But since you ask, I am not okay with it in many contexts and my confidence estimates are applied to individual situations rather than being general. I have had experience of being attacked by mobs, both online and physically. I have scars from being kicked in the head and stabbed in the leg during such an attack. I've separately been arrested and jailed on specious charges over political activity (more than once) and obtained dismissal of charges in court. And I have been the target of both verbal and physical violence on many, many occasions, often both on the same occasion. So I come at this question with very extensive first hand knowledge of how such arguments can play out. So now, would you care to respond to the question I asked: how do you think coordinated speech in a marketplace of ideas differs from coordination of buying or selling in response to price signals?
Zetice 4y ago
How should a marketplace of ideas work, then?
- 4y ago

brandonmenc 4y ago

> If you want to change that and have a public platform, you'll have to consider the digital equivalent of communism. Or just like, new regulations on the giant corporations operating these services? No need to go as far as communism.