3 ms·

No. You are creating a red herring. What is speech if no one can hear it or read it? If I intercepted the post you just made and scrambled it with random charac

by cudgy 4y ago

No. You are creating a red herring. What is speech if no one can hear it or read it? If I intercepted the post you just made and scrambled it with random characters so noone else would understand it, are you still calling that free speech? How is that effectively different than some people purposefully yelling over your conversations and scrambling the sound waves entering the intended listener’s ear?

slg 4y ago
>What is speech if no one can hear it or read it? Take your thought process here a step further. If we establish that speech needs to be heard in order to satisfy the principle of free speech, how many people need to hear something before it qualifies? >If I intercepted the post you just made and scrambled it with random characters so noone else would understand it, are you still calling that free speech? Are you arguing that downvoting a comment until the text is gray and difficult to read is HN infringing on a user's free speech?
- LawTalkingGuy 4y ago
  No, speech needs to be hearable by those who would choose. You're free to shout your own counter-message, but from far enough away that you're adding signal not noise. Similarly, trying to form a barricade and keep people from reaching the speaker and hearing them is an attempt to silence their speech.
- stale2002 4y ago
  > how many people need to hear something before it qualifies? Thats an easy question to answer. The answer would be whoever voluntarily chooses to listen to that speech, of their own free will, without other people coming in to make significant disruptions (especially illegal disruptions, or acts of illegal physical violence) of that voluntary interaction between speaker and hearer. > Are you arguing that downvoting a comment..... is HN infringing on a user's free speech? A better example would be a 3rd party going to the server room where Hacker News is stored, destroying the servers with a hammer, and then saying "Your speech isn't infringed on! You were allowed to say whatever you wanted! You just don't have the right to be heard, because I the uninvolved 3rd party broke into the server room and destroyed the server hardware!" Yes, if this is what happened, this is starting to get close to censorship. Especially if it is not a one time thing, and is instead continual or illegal. Also, if you want a better explanation, just go look up how free speech works in the US. All these crazy hypotheticals, that you think are somehow gotchas, have mostly been settled by the US court system. And the US court system has side strongly in favor of protecting free speech, while also being able to deal with these very limited and rare exceptions, to prevent extremely damaging content, like direct and immediate calls or violence, or the like. This has all been covered before, mostly, in a good way, by the US legal system and court precedent.

by cudgy 4y ago

slg 4y ago

>What is speech if no one can hear it or read it? Take your thought process here a step further. If we establish that speech needs to be heard in order to satisfy the principle of free speech, how many people need to hear something before it qualifies? >If I intercepted the post you just made and scrambled it with random characters so noone else would understand it, are you still calling that free speech? Are you arguing that downvoting a comment until the text is gray and difficult to read is HN infringing on a user's free speech?

LawTalkingGuy 4y ago
No, speech needs to be hearable by those who would choose. You're free to shout your own counter-message, but from far enough away that you're adding signal not noise. Similarly, trying to form a barricade and keep people from reaching the speaker and hearing them is an attempt to silence their speech.
stale2002 4y ago
> how many people need to hear something before it qualifies? Thats an easy question to answer. The answer would be whoever voluntarily chooses to listen to that speech, of their own free will, without other people coming in to make significant disruptions (especially illegal disruptions, or acts of illegal physical violence) of that voluntary interaction between speaker and hearer. > Are you arguing that downvoting a comment..... is HN infringing on a user's free speech? A better example would be a 3rd party going to the server room where Hacker News is stored, destroying the servers with a hammer, and then saying "Your speech isn't infringed on! You were allowed to say whatever you wanted! You just don't have the right to be heard, because I the uninvolved 3rd party broke into the server room and destroyed the server hardware!" Yes, if this is what happened, this is starting to get close to censorship. Especially if it is not a one time thing, and is instead continual or illegal. Also, if you want a better explanation, just go look up how free speech works in the US. All these crazy hypotheticals, that you think are somehow gotchas, have mostly been settled by the US court system. And the US court system has side strongly in favor of protecting free speech, while also being able to deal with these very limited and rare exceptions, to prevent extremely damaging content, like direct and immediate calls or violence, or the like. This has all been covered before, mostly, in a good way, by the US legal system and court precedent.