5 ms·

Does freedom of speech cover shouting "free speech" in a crowded internet forum and then running for cover?

lm28469 3y ago
Year of our lord 2023, people still don't know what freedom of speech is despite mentioning it all the time > Categories of speech that are given lesser or no protection by the First Amendment include obscenity (as determined by the Miller test), fraud, child pornography, speech integral to illegal conduct,[15] speech that incites imminent lawless action
- robomartin 3y ago
  I like to put it this way: You always have the freedom to say anything you want. That should not be assumed to mean you are free from the consequences of your speech. You can actually yell "Fire!!!" in a crowded theater. And you will have a serious legal problem to contend with. The reason I put it this way sometimes is because there are people who think of the idea of freedom of speech as some kind of a sacrosanct shield. That's not the case at all. You can still get punched in the face if you are an ass.
  - worrycue 3y ago
    > That should not be assumed to mean you are free from the consequences of your speech. Define for me then what does it mean to not have freedom of speech. Because "having freedom of speech" and "not having freedom of speech" is beginning to look a lot like the same thing using your definition. > You can actually yell "Fire!!!" in a crowded theater. And you will have a serious legal problem to contend with. You use one of the few exceptions to freedom of speech to make your case? If there are negative consequences to speaking your mind then by definition you aren't really free to do so anymore.
    - jfengel 3y ago
      The definition is a gigantic pile of judicial precedents, which lawyers spend years learning. The definition cannot be reduced to an Internet aphorism, and such an aphorism could never be just. Real human interactions are complicated, and real law will always revolve around balancing conflicting rights.
      - worrycue 3y ago
        Freedom of speech as a concept is relatively simple, Wikipedia has pretty good definition, “Freedom of speech is a principle that supports the freedom of an individual or a community to articulate their opinions and ideas without fear of retaliation, censorship, or legal sanction.” > The definition is a gigantic pile of judicial precedents, which lawyers spend years learning. The thing is, no country has 100% unfettered freedom of speech. Judicial precedents are all about what is and isn’t an exception to freedom of speech under US law - i.e. what they debate about is “freedom of speech”, they are debating about whether X falls under the exceptions that the country has chosen.
    - robomartin 3y ago
      > Define for me then what does it mean to not have freedom of speech. I am not sure you understand what freedom of speech, the reality, not the fantasy, means as defined in the First Amendment (FA) of the US Constitution. At a very basic level, it isn't complicated at all. There is no language whatsoever having anything to do with magical powers that shield anyone when they say whatever goes through their mind in any private or public setting outside of contact with government. In a sense, the FA defines a set (think Venn diagram), call it "F". Defining what it means not to have freedom of speech, then, is relatively simple: Anything in the universal set that isn't in F. So ~F. An easy example of this might be a range of surreal scenarios where government controls what you can say and they can throw you in jail if they don't like what you say. You know, like what happened to Jack Ma when the Chinese Communist Party didn't like what he was saying. He conveniently disappeared for a long time...surely taking a relaxed vacation. Yeah. >> You can actually yell "Fire!!!" in a crowded theater. And you will have a serious legal problem to contend with. > You use one of the few exceptions to freedom of speech to make your case? It's just an easy example. Try it. Stan up in a theater and yell "Fire!!!". Nobody is going to stop you. Not even the government. > If there are negative consequences to speaking your mind then by definition you aren't really free to do so anymore. Sure you are. In full understanding of the consequences of your speech. I get your point. Maybe the word "free" isn't precise enough in these discussions. I get it. I mean, you can stand in the middle of the street somewhere in North Korea (pick any totalitarian regime) and just unload on the government and their mothers. In that sense, every North Korean is "free" to do that. The fact that they likely end-up dead makes them not free at all. Right? How is that different from not being able to yell "Fire!!!" at a theater? Well, in one sense, and likely your point, it isn't. If you can't do that and walk away without consequences, how is it that you are "free". The difference here, I think, is that, in the US, "Freedom of Speech" is defined very narrowly to apply to what I am going to define as "contact with government". Somehow people have come to ascribe many magical meanings to the term. Like having the magical right to yell obscenities to someone's face and that person --because of this imaginary magical shield-- cannot do anything about it. Sounds great, yet, that's pure fantasy. Hence my statement about the popular version of freedom of speech, not the First Amendment: You are free to say anything you want, anywhere you want. You are not free from the consequences of what you choose to say. Again, nothing whatsoever to do with the FA, that's a different beast with it's own problems. Here's one of my First Amendment observations (note: IANAL, which means this could be complete nonsense): A politician can lie to all of us without consequences. If you lie to a government official, you could end-up in jail. I am not sure how that squares with the FA, except in cases where you are explicitly required to speak the truth.
  - worksonmine 3y ago
    > You can still get punched in the face if you are an ass. This is exactly what freedom of speech is supposed to protect us from. I think most people will agree that violence is worse than being rude. Harassment however is a different thing, people are not forced to engage in conversations they don't want to. If one tries to leave but is followed then a punch is well deserved, that's personal space being violated. But we don't punch people just because we don't agree with them that's retarded. Use your own words or leave, it's not that difficult.
    - predictabl3 3y ago
      Yeah, sorry, you're just describing your own moral/social code. It's honorable and I happen to generally agree with your view of how folks should interact. (I also know it costs nothing for people to call for me to be killed because I like dudes, and I know that that impacts my quality of life and health, but those sorts of things never matter to absolutionists who never seem to have dealt with serious concern trolls, threats, implicit violence, etc. Which apparently I'm supposed to tolerate for 35+ years? Started out with seeing Fred Phelps family using free speech to draw crude depictions of gay men in intimate positions, and talking about God killing Americans on 9/11 because of tolerating gay people. Carrying signs and protesting at places such that I would see them regularly. From 5 years old til 18 when I fled that red state and never looked back. Imagine being in a conservative state, not knowing another single gay person besides Ellen on the TV, surrounded by a bunch of conservative, and the jerks that even the conservatives won't claim, all telling me that I'm completely worthless, or the reason American soldiers die. As a 12 year old, scared he might be gay. But hey, it's just speech, that couldn't possibly be incredibly damaging for a child to see during his formative years!! Nahhhh) Aaaanyway, moreover, what you're describing has nothing to do with the protections afforded by the actual First Amendment, which is about speech free of governmental prosecution. So fucking done with this conversation. I should've never made the joke so I could've lied to myself and pretended that people might've actually educated themselves on this topic. And fwiw, I am fine with the ACLU defending the Phelps's right to free speech. I mean, really, I have some respect for them now. At least they actually follow scripture and have conviction unlike virtually every other modern Abrahamic religion that just is awful until about 8 years after the needle has moved, and then they change their view arbitrarily to try to stay popular and relevant given the changing surrounding social norms.
  - halfjoking 3y ago
    https://twitter.com/TexasLindsay_/status/1690133677450125312 https://twitter.com/TexasLindsay_/status/1690133677450125312 mRNA vaccines are not safe - people who shouted fire were censored and continue to be censored. Where are the consequences for those who said “there is no fire?” And if you still believe there isn’t a fire… why are excess deaths among < 24 up 45% and it still doesn’t make the news?
    - lm28469 3y ago
      Do you have any sources besides "TexasLindsay" ?
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]

Year of our lord 2023, people still don't know what freedom of speech is despite mentioning it all the time > Categories of speech that are given lesser or no protection by the First Amendment include obscenity (as determined by the Miller test), fraud, child pornography, speech integral to illegal conduct,[15] speech that incites imminent lawless action

robomartin 3y ago
I like to put it this way: You always have the freedom to say anything you want. That should not be assumed to mean you are free from the consequences of your speech. You can actually yell "Fire!!!" in a crowded theater. And you will have a serious legal problem to contend with. The reason I put it this way sometimes is because there are people who think of the idea of freedom of speech as some kind of a sacrosanct shield. That's not the case at all. You can still get punched in the face if you are an ass.
- worrycue 3y ago
  > That should not be assumed to mean you are free from the consequences of your speech. Define for me then what does it mean to not have freedom of speech. Because "having freedom of speech" and "not having freedom of speech" is beginning to look a lot like the same thing using your definition. > You can actually yell "Fire!!!" in a crowded theater. And you will have a serious legal problem to contend with. You use one of the few exceptions to freedom of speech to make your case? If there are negative consequences to speaking your mind then by definition you aren't really free to do so anymore.
  - jfengel 3y ago
    The definition is a gigantic pile of judicial precedents, which lawyers spend years learning. The definition cannot be reduced to an Internet aphorism, and such an aphorism could never be just. Real human interactions are complicated, and real law will always revolve around balancing conflicting rights.
    - worrycue 3y ago
      Freedom of speech as a concept is relatively simple, Wikipedia has pretty good definition, “Freedom of speech is a principle that supports the freedom of an individual or a community to articulate their opinions and ideas without fear of retaliation, censorship, or legal sanction.” > The definition is a gigantic pile of judicial precedents, which lawyers spend years learning. The thing is, no country has 100% unfettered freedom of speech. Judicial precedents are all about what is and isn’t an exception to freedom of speech under US law - i.e. what they debate about is “freedom of speech”, they are debating about whether X falls under the exceptions that the country has chosen.
  - robomartin 3y ago
    > Define for me then what does it mean to not have freedom of speech. I am not sure you understand what freedom of speech, the reality, not the fantasy, means as defined in the First Amendment (FA) of the US Constitution. At a very basic level, it isn't complicated at all. There is no language whatsoever having anything to do with magical powers that shield anyone when they say whatever goes through their mind in any private or public setting outside of contact with government. In a sense, the FA defines a set (think Venn diagram), call it "F". Defining what it means not to have freedom of speech, then, is relatively simple: Anything in the universal set that isn't in F. So ~F. An easy example of this might be a range of surreal scenarios where government controls what you can say and they can throw you in jail if they don't like what you say. You know, like what happened to Jack Ma when the Chinese Communist Party didn't like what he was saying. He conveniently disappeared for a long time...surely taking a relaxed vacation. Yeah. >> You can actually yell "Fire!!!" in a crowded theater. And you will have a serious legal problem to contend with. > You use one of the few exceptions to freedom of speech to make your case? It's just an easy example. Try it. Stan up in a theater and yell "Fire!!!". Nobody is going to stop you. Not even the government. > If there are negative consequences to speaking your mind then by definition you aren't really free to do so anymore. Sure you are. In full understanding of the consequences of your speech. I get your point. Maybe the word "free" isn't precise enough in these discussions. I get it. I mean, you can stand in the middle of the street somewhere in North Korea (pick any totalitarian regime) and just unload on the government and their mothers. In that sense, every North Korean is "free" to do that. The fact that they likely end-up dead makes them not free at all. Right? How is that different from not being able to yell "Fire!!!" at a theater? Well, in one sense, and likely your point, it isn't. If you can't do that and walk away without consequences, how is it that you are "free". The difference here, I think, is that, in the US, "Freedom of Speech" is defined very narrowly to apply to what I am going to define as "contact with government". Somehow people have come to ascribe many magical meanings to the term. Like having the magical right to yell obscenities to someone's face and that person --because of this imaginary magical shield-- cannot do anything about it. Sounds great, yet, that's pure fantasy. Hence my statement about the popular version of freedom of speech, not the First Amendment: You are free to say anything you want, anywhere you want. You are not free from the consequences of what you choose to say. Again, nothing whatsoever to do with the FA, that's a different beast with it's own problems. Here's one of my First Amendment observations (note: IANAL, which means this could be complete nonsense): A politician can lie to all of us without consequences. If you lie to a government official, you could end-up in jail. I am not sure how that squares with the FA, except in cases where you are explicitly required to speak the truth.
- worksonmine 3y ago
  > You can still get punched in the face if you are an ass. This is exactly what freedom of speech is supposed to protect us from. I think most people will agree that violence is worse than being rude. Harassment however is a different thing, people are not forced to engage in conversations they don't want to. If one tries to leave but is followed then a punch is well deserved, that's personal space being violated. But we don't punch people just because we don't agree with them that's retarded. Use your own words or leave, it's not that difficult.
  - predictabl3 3y ago
    Yeah, sorry, you're just describing your own moral/social code. It's honorable and I happen to generally agree with your view of how folks should interact. (I also know it costs nothing for people to call for me to be killed because I like dudes, and I know that that impacts my quality of life and health, but those sorts of things never matter to absolutionists who never seem to have dealt with serious concern trolls, threats, implicit violence, etc. Which apparently I'm supposed to tolerate for 35+ years? Started out with seeing Fred Phelps family using free speech to draw crude depictions of gay men in intimate positions, and talking about God killing Americans on 9/11 because of tolerating gay people. Carrying signs and protesting at places such that I would see them regularly. From 5 years old til 18 when I fled that red state and never looked back. Imagine being in a conservative state, not knowing another single gay person besides Ellen on the TV, surrounded by a bunch of conservative, and the jerks that even the conservatives won't claim, all telling me that I'm completely worthless, or the reason American soldiers die. As a 12 year old, scared he might be gay. But hey, it's just speech, that couldn't possibly be incredibly damaging for a child to see during his formative years!! Nahhhh) Aaaanyway, moreover, what you're describing has nothing to do with the protections afforded by the actual First Amendment, which is about speech free of governmental prosecution. So fucking done with this conversation. I should've never made the joke so I could've lied to myself and pretended that people might've actually educated themselves on this topic. And fwiw, I am fine with the ACLU defending the Phelps's right to free speech. I mean, really, I have some respect for them now. At least they actually follow scripture and have conviction unlike virtually every other modern Abrahamic religion that just is awful until about 8 years after the needle has moved, and then they change their view arbitrarily to try to stay popular and relevant given the changing surrounding social norms.
- halfjoking 3y ago
  https://twitter.com/TexasLindsay_/status/1690133677450125312 https://twitter.com/TexasLindsay_/status/1690133677450125312 mRNA vaccines are not safe - people who shouted fire were censored and continue to be censored. Where are the consequences for those who said “there is no fire?” And if you still believe there isn’t a fire… why are excess deaths among < 24 up 45% and it still doesn’t make the news?
  - lm28469 3y ago
    Do you have any sources besides "TexasLindsay" ?
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]