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I've always been a free speech absolutist. I don't think there's any speech, including hate speech, that I would ban. If I don't like it, I can offer my own opi

• WalterBright 4y ago
  I suspect the theory is if one controls others' speech, thereby one also controls their thoughts. Is this really true? How many people adjust their speech to fit in, and change their thoughts to match?
  • rexpop 4y ago
    This is certainly true to some degree, or else all advertising expenditure is wasted.
    • TeMPOraL 4y ago
      Right. But curiously enough, advertising, broadly speaking, tries to either 1) make you lust for something the advertised good/service claims to provide, or 2) makes you fear something the advertised good/service claims to mitigate. I'm yet to see any advertisement try to get you to buy something under threat of repercussions, or threat of being dehumanized. This last category is what GP is asking about, so advertising can serve at best as weak evidence that it doesn't work (or else it would be used in ads).
    • WalterBright 4y ago
      I don't know of any advertisement that made me buy something I didn't want. Has any done that to you?
      • rexpop 4y ago
        But, of course, the purchase comes after the want, which comes after the ad. So I don't see how you've offered a counterpoint at all.
        • TeMPOraL 4y ago
          See my parallel reply to GGP. It's push vs. pull. Ads pull you by creating a want (either lust-driven or fear-driven) and conveniently pointing to something that can fulfill it. The followers of oppressive and hateful ideologies instead push you to do something or adopt some belief, under threat of being labeled the enemy should you not comply. Put another way, the difference between this threat-based persuasion and fear-based advertising is that the ads are just bullshitting you into believing you're in some danger, so you'll buy the advertiser's "solution", while threat-based approach is that the other party will put you in danger unless you comply with them.
  • wrycoder 4y ago
    There are people, who, if you kick them into the ditch, will lay there thinking, "I must have done something to deserve this."
    • redeeman 4y ago
      and then a few moments later they might concievably go "oh wait, this was simply unprovoked violence, and I am now going to be taking steps to protect myself and others from this threat to society"
  • carlosjobim 4y ago
    If they adjust their speech and their behavior, it doesn't matter anymore what they actually think but dare tell no one.
    • TeMPOraL 4y ago
      That's the exact kind of thinking used by various oppressive and totalitarian movements and governments in the past. Sooner or later, it ends in physical violence. It's just sad that those self-proclaimed anti-oppression activists don't see they're using the very same methods for their supposed goals.
      • carlosjobim 4y ago
        Yes, as the lies build upon lies and more and more people flock to enter the parasitic class by corruption instead of being part of the host class, the inevitable end is war or one-sided killing. Since you cannot shine truth on a small lie without exposing bigger lies, the lies snowball into unmanageable levels, inhibiting all creativity, science and business. This happens in any corrupt people, even without any violence or even threat of violence. But the violence is inevitable in the end.
    • WalterBright 4y ago
      What happens is they go underground and push back that way. In the USSR the citizens would declare their fervent loyalty to communist ideology and by night they buy Adidas black market shoes for their kids.
• yibg 4y ago
  It seems fundamentally it comes down to whether or not speech can directly cause harm. Canonical example of yelling fire and all that. But lately it’s also been about misinformation, lies etc. should for example defamation be a thing, or fraud etc.
  • sneak 4y ago
    Misinformation does not directly cause harm. The actions or inactions of those so affected is the thing that causes the harm; misinformation thus indirectly causes harm.
    • colordrops 4y ago
      That may be true but it does not mean that it should be banned.
      • mr_toad 4y ago
        So we should allow perjury?
        • colordrops 4y ago
          Don't straw man. They didn't say perjury.
        • sneak 4y ago
          We do regularly allow perjury, as a matter of tradition and practice in the US. Almost every judicial search or seizure order issued is issued following law enforcement perjury (sometimes trivial, sometimes major). I have yet to see a search warrant application that does not contain falsehoods (each and every one sworn under penalty of perjury), and I only have experience with ones that have been signed and issued.
          • notch898a 4y ago
            Not to mention there may be no mechanism to bring the perjurer to justice. For instance, I was served a search warrant on the basis a DOG accused me of wrongdoing. How do you accuse a dog of perjury? Not to mention it was an anonymous, unnamed dog and the person who allegedly listened to the dog was also unnamed on the warrant, so it was 3rd degree interspecies hearsay.
• WanderPanda 4y ago
  I almost agree. But there seems to be speech that should be forbidden, like threats of physical violence. I would argue that just the threat of physical violence changes the expected value of the future and hence can force someone to alter their behavior. I think this is one of the few cases where "your freedom stops where the freedom of the other begins" actually applies. I would be interested if you would also argue against prohibiting this kind of speech
  • bentley 4y ago
    Under US law, the standard (established in Brandenburg v. Ohio) is whether the speech is likely to result in imminent lawless action.
    • bee_rider 4y ago
      This is because US law was not written by free speech absolutists.
      • 2devnull 4y ago
        It’s a legal decision. The case they decided on was not, “should free speech absolutism be protected by law?” The case was about what sort of speech is a type of criminal conduct. A scammer is breaking the law if he lies to you in committing a fraud. That does not mean he doesn’t have free speech. This isn’t difficult to understand for most people who aren’t being contentious in bad faith.
        • fsckboy 4y ago
          > The case was about what sort of speech is a type of criminal conduct. the case was decided by the state on basis of "what sort of speech threatens the laws created by the state" I'm pointing out the difference because science requires questioning, and free speech allows it, but the state and the mob may prefer you to not question state mandates on, oh let's say for example, covid's origins or the hastily prepared novel vaccines or whimsical ever changing masking policies and any measures of their effectiveness
• rexpop 4y ago
  > Some people may believe hate speech but I think that's a reflection of who they are, ie. they will probably believe it with or without the convincing. I just don't know where you got this idea. "Hate speech" isn't just a vague, negative sentiment towards universally recognizable characteristics. It constitutes particular themes and narratives regarding identities constructed arbitrarily out of a constellation of human characteristics that mean nothing outside their context. The absurd story, for example, that Jews bake their Matzah bread out of Christian childrens' blood isn't something that would ever be reproduced on a desert island, any more than it would be reproduced by a thousand monkeys hacking away at typewriters. It's a particular trope invented by a particular powerbase (Christian princes) for economic purposes (maintaining Feudalism despite plebian uprisings). No one would "probably believe it... without the convincing," because it has to be invented first, and then it has to be introduced to the milieu. The same is true of basically any story or narrative. Here is where you might be right: maintaining the political economy of medieval Europe necessitated some kind of blood libel, and the Jewish communities were a conveniently vulnerable minority. So at that point, Christian princes needed no convincing themselves, and "that's a reflection of who they are:" Christian, and princes. (I leave it to the reader, as an exercise, to determine whether it was more material that they were Christian, or that they were princes.) Here is where that's limited: Christian princes do not, themselves, need to believe the libel. They do need, however, their economic powerbase to believe it. And their economic powerbase of Christian commoners has no reason to think up the blood libel themselves when the facts of their exploitation under feudalism ought to cause them to resent, primarily, princes. I am not suggesting that "complete free speech" is infeasible, or undesirable, but, to reiterate, I simply don't understand where you got the idea that people all over the world somehow spontaneously, perhaps genetically, simultaneously author with identical wording, the very particular tropes that constitute hate speech.
  • remarkEon 4y ago
    What does modern debates on free speech in the US have to do with Jews in medieval Europe? I’m struggling with the connection here because it almost seems like you’re implying that the proponents of unfettered free speech are coming from a place of some sort of generational pattern of blood libel and free speech is just an excuse, but that can’t be what you’re saying can it?
• Dudeman112 4y ago
  >personally believe that most people are smarter than this Every single time someone's uttered those words they were eventually proven wrong Not that I think we should be banning speech, mind you. Just figured a reminder on that tiny bit was warranted. Assuming people aren't morons is the doom of many endeavours
  • sneak 4y ago
    Assuming that you are smart enough to decide what other adults aren't clever enough to be allowed to read is the same kind of error.
    • trgn 4y ago
      I get where you're coming from, but it's not an error. It's your civic duty to make that distinction. By definition, half of people are worse (however you define worse) than average. The world is truly held up by the inertia of the achievements of our betters spanning generations. I praise myself lucky every day to live in a stable western country with a heritage of centuries of liberality and thousands of models of civic courage and leadership. If the edifice we're standing on is stable, and let's hope so, it's despite the frothing masses of idiots and vengeful iconoclasts. Yes, always a good chance I myself am one of these idiots, but nonetheless, it doesn't make the overall assessment any less true. The inability or unwillingness to point out right from wrong is either due to a lack of courage or an absence of hubris. Both sides of the same coin. That judgement, who to entrust with the levers of society, needs to happen.
      • AnthonyMouse 4y ago
        > By definition, half of people are worse (however you define worse) than average. It's worse than that when you're trying to make decisions on behalf of everyone. It's perfectly possible for the decision that's right for you to be wrong for well more than half of the population for diverse individual reasons that they each understand and you don't. Which is why in cases like that you defer to the individual to make their own decision, and if you think your choice is better, convince them rather than force them.
• brazzy 4y ago
  I, on the contrary, believe that free speech absolutism is morally and intellectually lazy, naive, and wrong. Banning some speech is in fact necessary to preserve freedom. Speech has real consequences, otherwise why would you consider it important to defend? Hate speech is a real problem. It is poisonous to society and results in real people getting killed for real. And no, the "marketplace of ideas" where you offer your own opinion to disprove lies is a hopelessly naive concept. That's not how the world works. In reality, people prefer to stay in echo chambers. And fascists laugh about how you're working towards making it easier for them to abolish all freedoms. > When our enemies say: well, we gave you the freedom of opinion back then- yeah, you gave it to us, that's in no way evidence that we should return the favor! Your stupidity shall not be contagious! That you granted it to us is evidence of how dumb you are! -- Joseph Goebbels, 1935 And no, there is no slippery slope here. Many European countries have well-designed, robust hate speech bans that have worked well for decades to protect freedom against those who would destroy it.
  • silisili 4y ago
    How does one definite hate speech? Who gets to decide? That's my entire problem with this philosophy. Some one or some group feel holy enough to be the arbiters. A lot of religious texts, beliefs, and/or sermons would probably be considered hate speech to a not insignificant number of people.
    • Zetice 4y ago
      I don’t think, “it’s hard” is a justifiable reason for an idea to be wrong, so I’m not sure the fact that having a fair way of discerning hate speech is hard means that we shouldn’t discern hate speech.
      • silisili 4y ago
        It's not hard, it's quite literally impossible. If there's a person who believes God is real, and the Bible is real, and homosexuals are sinners... and another person who is homosexual and doesn't believe in God, where can there be compromise? I'm neither, just looking at this from above. The best you can do is disenfranchising anything less than the majority's opinion. I think the current US model works well. Free speech, unless it's going to lead to immediate harm and such. Anything more than that is a step into authoritarianism, and where I fear we're headed. The private sector has already tried to be said arbiters, so it's interesting to see where this ends up.
• deleted 4y ago
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• bee_rider 4y ago
  I don’t get free speech absolutism. In particular, there’s the old obvious conflict: most conversation takes place online nowadays, on privately owned platforms, like this one. In ideal free-speech land, these platforms are relaying our speech, and the decision to do so or not is part of their freedom of speech. It isn’t obvious to me that there is an absolute direction. It seems like an interplay of the speech interests of various entities which may push against each other.
  • shkkmo 4y ago
    > the decision to do so or not is part of their freedom of speech. If this is true, then they should also face liability for that speech. As it is "platforms" are given the rights of free speech with none of the responsibility. Personally, I don't think that platforms are people and thus don't have the same rights to speech which is why we allow them to escape some of the responsibility. There are big benefits to allowing platforms to do some level of moderation without accepting full liability for all speech on their platform. However, in exchange these platforms lose the right to arbitrarily ban and censor people.
    • bee_rider 4y ago
      > If this is true, then they should also face liability for that speech. As it is "platforms" are given the rights of free speech with none of the responsibility. It is not true, we don’t live in a free speech absolutist world. I’m pointing out that free speech absolutism doesn’t obviously point in the direction of maximum free speech for the individual. In a free speech absolutist world, there’s no liability to worry about in the first place. > Personally, I don't think that platforms are people and thus don't have the same rights to speech which is why we allow them to escape some of the responsibility. Platforms aren’t people, but they are owned and operated by people, who have the same free speech rights as everybody else. It seems like this ought to include the owner’s right to selectively publish content they’ve been sent. I’m not a free speech absolutist, and so I resolve this issue by saying, yeah, free speech absolutism is dumb, it is fine if we protect some types of speech, and selectively acknowledge the right of platform-owners to not broadcast some types of speech. There are competing interests and navigating them requires getting into the weeds. Unfortunately, this doesn’t have quite the moral certainty of “free speech absolutism.”
• wrycoder 4y ago
  Graham: What you can't say http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html
• vpilcx 4y ago
  I think that's really easy to believe in - when you're not at risk in any kind of way. I mean, if you're a white guy, what do you give a fuck about someone turning America into a white ethnostate? Sure, theoretically, it's morally bad, but you're not really going to be directly affected. If you're not trans, being characterized as a groomer pedophile has no effect at all to you. I think it's easy to take a stand in favor of free speech when speech is only speech, but that's a remarkably naive and gullible viewpoint to have. Do you think white supremacists that lynch black people don't use hate speech beforehand and talk about exterminating non-whites beforehand? "But that's violence. That's diferent.", you might say. How do you think these people meet each other and collaborate with each other and normalize this kind of behavior? Through 'free speech'.
  • deleted 4y ago
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  • blindriver 4y ago
    So are you saying we should outlaw letting people gather and say disagreeable/racist things privately among each other? Boy that escalated pretty quickly. What's next? Should we outlaw people thinking racist and hateful things as well?
    • dustymcp 4y ago
      Ofcourse, that's what the chip in the vaccine is for!
  • BxGyw2 4y ago
    Actually there are a lot of black supremacists etc, people who absolutely hate me and want my whole race to die and I'll still listen to their podcasts and stuff just because it's something interesting. People who aren't scared to be labelled extreme are usually saying the interesting stuff that needs to be said. You should stop taking everything so serious and just go with the flow
    • vpilcx 4y ago
• skizm 4y ago
  What about: yelling "fire" in a crowded room, deliberately lying on the internet in a way that leads to deaths (ex. 4chan's "how to grow crystals" post), targeting kids or at risk groups with ads or content for things like gambling, alcohol, etc., calling for someone's death, posting instructions for making a bomb?
  • bentley 4y ago
    > What about: yelling "fire" in a crowded room Yep, that’s pretty dangerous, and people could get hurt. That shouldn’t be protected by the First Amendment. Oh yeah, and protesting the draft. That’s pretty dangerous too. Government military recruitment is a necessity when we’re at war, and advocating against it is tantamount to sedition and espionage. It’s basically the same situation as shouting “fire” in a crowded room, and should not be protected by the First Amendment. Now, I don’t actually believe this—I’m merely sharing how the US Supreme Court used exactly the same analogy you did, in 1919. Schenck v. United States is the most important use of the “‘fire’ in a crowded theater” analogy in history, because it shows how, in practice, such common‐sense ideas actually get used by the powerful.
    • skizm 4y ago
      Do you think yelling fire in a crowded room should be legal?
    • fennecfoxy 4y ago
      >Government military recruitment is a necessity when we’re at war Only if you're male, apparently.
  • UnpossibleJim 4y ago
    At that point, why bother to allow gambling or alcohol a place in society. If people truly have no self determination, why not let a state or federal agency dictate all of their rights and wrongs. Eat only what's good for you because if it isn't healthy and slimming, you can't say anything about it because obese people are an "at risk" population. No more addictive medications of any kind. Doctors aren't agents of the state and couldn't possibly be as educated as a government representative, like your congressman. And intimating that your government officials lied to the public at large would be strictly verboten, I'm sure.
• jltsiren 4y ago
  Most people are not free speech absolutists. They may support free speech if they believe it will make the society better. It's means to an end, not the end itself. For them, the extent speech should be free is an empirical question and not a matter of principles. From this perspective, the worst kind of speech is not hate speech or calls for violence. It's the speech that deepens political divisions and lowers trust in the society. When people see how free speech is making the society worse – when they start seeing their political opponents as their enemies – they want to police speech to make the society better. Especially the speech their enemies. If you engage in speech like that, or if you support people who do it, you are undermining freedom of speech. You may believe you support freedom of speech, but in practice you may be opposing it.
  • cm2187 4y ago
    > It's the speech that deepens political divisions and lowers trust in the society So when Fauci lies on television, I can't speak out because it would deepend political divisions and lower trust in the society? That's a terrible standard. And completely subjective. This is the very definition of the absense of free speech. Free speech is the freedom to disagree, to challenge. Not to only say what is consensual.
    • redeeman 4y ago
      [flagged]
      • dang 4y ago
        Could you please stop posting unsubstantive comments and flamebait? You've unfortunately been doing it repeatedly. It's not what this site is for, and destroys what it is for. If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.
    • jltsiren 4y ago
      Why do you support freedom of speech? For its own sake, or because words are actions with consequences? Is politics about being right, administering the state, or changing the society? Is "political" a negative, neutral, or positive attribute? If it's change you're after, sometimes your best course of action is to remain silent and to leave politics to those with personalities better suited for it. I've known enough politicians to understand that they are often better people than I am. Not everyone but many, perhaps even the majority. They can disagree in public, work together despite their differences, and go grab a beer together after work.
• nimchimpsky 4y ago
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• danans 4y ago
  > Some people may believe hate speech but I think that's a reflection of who they are, ie. they will probably believe it with or without the convincing. I personally believe that most people are smarter than this The genocides of recent history debunk the idea that people are "smart" enough to dismiss hate propagandists. Also, it doesn't have anything to do with being smart, because lots of "smart" people also join hate-motivated movements. They do it because hate serves their inner needs, the same reason that so-called "not-smart" people do it. Believing in people's better angels is great and all, but outside of contexts where they feel safe, humans don't instinctively love or even tolerate their fellow humans, especially when their fears and insecurities are targeted. Fear, intolerance, and hate are unfortunately much simpler and more default than nuance and tolerance. That is why hate speech is inordinately effective compared to tolerance-speech.
• fortituded0002 4y ago
  > There is no system better than complete free speech, because it allows the most amount of information to be passed back and forth and gives people the opportunity to decide for themselves. I used this think this, but then I figured out that I live in a world where I'm not always welcome by the "majority" and have seen first hand how these things can go sideways. Now I view this attitude as a privilege and that it typically comes from someone whose rights aren't all that impacted by the tyranny of the majority.
  • redeeman 4y ago
    > but then I figured out that I live in a world where I'm not always welcome by the "majority" and have seen first hand how these things can go sideways. and if they cannot say what they think, they will simply welcome you more?
    • fortituded0002 4y ago
      Amazing leap you made there. But by all means, let's let people run rampant and not have any boundaries and then shrug when violence happens against minorities.
• devnonymous 4y ago
  > I personally believe that most people are smarter than this You've grossly overestimated the willingness (not the capacity) of people to reason and gravely underestimated the power of propoganda. Everything in history from religion to politics, from sports to war, yes even the history of science, points to the capacity of humans to willfully ignore knowledge.
• krsdcbl 4y ago
  I think you're misinterpreting the motivations to oppose hate speech. Thinking it "might convince stupid people of wrongs" is something we might think of as a trope, but if you think about it it's an elitist fallacy. It stems purely from the idea that I, smart and educated as I am, must preserve the common idiot from making mistakes. The reason it's a debatable topic is much more banal und real: It's doing harm and impacting the lifes of the minorities targeted by such hate speech. No need for gullible fools to mistake it for a rallying call and do physical or otherwise subsequent harm. Hate speech is very well suited to hurt, oppress, silence and alienate all by itself. So yes, free speech must prevail any counterargument! But so does the moral principles not to hurt others, and the logical necessity that my freedom ends when it would diminish the freedom of others. And freedom of speech does not mean right to threaten others indemnity. If it would, that would do nothing but enable this very freedom of expressions downfall. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance
• acyou 4y ago
  Communication is a two way street. Speaking and listening. I'm not sure if free speech is currently restricted so much as listening is restricted. Censorship could be said to place limitations on both. Free speech absolutism - are you going to force people to listen? Who has the right to decide what content is available, and where? Are media platforms then compelled to not de-platform? I am literally censoring the TV when I turn it off. You think that's wrong? Don't understand what you mean by free speech absolutism, concept doesn't make too much sense to me.
  • AnthonyMouse 4y ago
    Free speech is violated when someone interferes with a willing speaker talking to a willing listener because of the content of their communications. Alice doesn't have to listen to Bob, but if Carol interferes with Alice listening to Bob, that's censorship.
• Causality1 4y ago
  I would call myself a 99-percenter. I still believe in the restriction of credible violent threats, fraud, and pornography featuring real children.
• chrismsimpson 4y ago
  So if people are handed coolaid and are stupid enough to drink it there should be no burden of responsibility placed on the community? No regulation banning the handing out of said coolaid? I don’t want to live in such a society. I think most reasonable people want commonsense restrictions in place for everyone’s safety. Free speech absolutionists can try their petri dish ideas, I’d just prefer they do it far away from the rest of us trying to live in a decent (and improving) society.
  • deleted 4y ago
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  • tkwj 4y ago
    Safety is often the first reason given when removing freedoms. It would be a fallacy to compare a poisonous coolaid or more precisely, Flavor-Aid, to speech even when yelling fire.
• ambicapter 4y ago
  > it allows the most amount of information to be passed back and forth It also allows for the most amount of noise, and there are tons of people who don't want to spend their lives filtering through a bunch of noise produced by bad actors and would rather trust someone reputable to do it for them.
• human_person 4y ago
  Is there really any such thing as free speech absolutism? Let’s say there are no rules about what you can say on Twitter. Carol tweets about not liking video games. In response 100s of trolls/bots start threatening to rape her. Alice sees the threats and decides not to tweet her own opinions about video games for fear of being on the receiving end of that vitriol. In my opinion, at this point Alice’s freedom of speech is being impeded. You could argue that she’s choosing not to speak because she doesn’t want to deal with the consequences but how is that different than not shouting fire in a theatre because you don’t want to be arrested? Every society decides what speech is acceptable and what isn’t. And then enforces that via social norms, laws and regulations. Personally I’d rather live in a society where people are able to share their opinions without being threatened. I think that society is actually maximizing the flow of information while a society focused on “No rules free speech absolutism” is simply delegating the choice of who is free to speak to mob rule. TLDR - free speech absolutism sounds simple until you think about who is actually free to speak/which voices are heard on platforms that have no rules
• fennecfoxy 4y ago
  Have you ever been a target of hate speech? Have any of your friends? You act like everyone is super strong and can deal with hate speech. As if a gay or trans teen can always handle being told again & again that they're a disgusting monster, that they don't belong in this world and that people like them should die. Not everyone is strong enough to refute these opinions with their own. And then they kill themselves.
• M2Ys4U 4y ago
  What about other rights that are in direct contradiction with freedom of speech? Take, for example, privacy. In a free speech absolutist world, nobody can ever have privacy, for anything one says in confidence can be repeated for all to hear. Or I could completely doxx you, and you'd have no recourse. Free speech absolutism is complete garbage
• lm28469 4y ago
  > There is no system better than complete free speech Yet it literally never existed