3 ms·

Both sound like they're protected by the first amendment to me. If people are booing you and telling you to get off the proverbial stage, you may be at a public

Both sound like they're protected by the first amendment to me. If people are booing you and telling you to get off the proverbial stage, you may be at a public impasse.

mhb 3y ago
No. The (US) first amendment protects citizens from government censorship and doesn't necessarily apply to private venues. Heckling someone stifles that person's right to express their ideas. Free speech is meant to protect the expression of ideas. Preventing someone from speaking is an act of silencing rather than an act of expressing an idea. Usually speakers at events are invited and the host has given them a platform. Disrupting them denies them that platform without providing a meaningful counter-argument or alternative viewpoint. Free speech requires an environment where ideas can be freely exchanged and debated. If one party is prevented from speaking, then no meaningful dialogue can occur. Arguing that heckling is a form of free speech creates a false equivalence between expressing an opposing viewpoint and actively suppressing someone else's speech.
- smoldesu 3y ago
  > The (US) first amendment protects citizens from government censorship and doesn't necessarily apply to private venues. I agree. Read the wording of the report, and it very clearly draws the line at what "shouting down" means: https://5666503.fs1.hubspotusercontent-na1.net/hubfs/5666503/CFSR%202024_final.pdf https://5666503.fs1.hubspotusercontent-na1.net/hubfs/5666503... They sampled students by asking them if they approve of three protesting scenarios, two nonviolent and one not. The statistic referenced in the title explicitly refers to the students who approve of nonviolent, nonobstructive protest. There is a specific, discrete and defined category for "Using violence to stop a campus speech." My original comment holds true under federal jurisdiction, as far as I can tell. Speech is speech.
  - mhb 3y ago
    I'm not sure what you're arguing. The first amendment is mainly incidental here since most of these places are not public universities. Preventing someone from speaking, as by heckling them, is not speech.
    - anigbrowl 3y ago
      Of course it is, even if the speech is no more nuanced than 'shut up and go away.'
      - mhb 3y ago
        Of course it's not. An audience can leave. Disrupting a speech and preventing others from hearing what someone has to say is not an exercise of free speech.
        deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
        smoldesu 3y ago
        If you create a public event on public property, you acknowledge that anyone can attend and exercise their rights adjacent to your event. Your only path of recourse for stopping a heckler is using the police, who cannot act on lawful public expression like heckling. Otherwise, today in the United States, you are out of luck. Any public venue where you have the right to speak to the public, you will be attended by people with the right to speak louder than you. That is part of the problem of using public property as a venue for a controversial speech. You have no right protecting you from interruption, ignorance or legal protest. If you are not hosting a public event, and it is on private property, then the host reserves the right to demand a guest to leave. In public, the ideals of heckling are directly consistent with protected, legal speech.
        mhb 3y ago
        Unsurprisingly, and despite your imaginings, you're wrong. The police will intervene on public property to remove hecklers who are prohibiting others from speaking. Today, in the United States. This letter from the dean of Stanford Law School apologizing for the heckling of a speaker there is a good place to start reading: https://www.thefire.org/research-learn/letter-stanford-law-school-dean-jenny-martinez-campus-community-march-22-2023 https://www.thefire.org/research-learn/letter-stanford-law-s... "Of course, protests are in some instances protected by the First Amendment, but the First Amendment does not give protestors a “heckler’s veto.” As First Amendment scholar Dean Erwin Chemerinsky has written, “Freedom of speech does not protect a right to shout down others so they cannot be heard.” Erwin Chemerinsky & Howard Gillman, Free speech doesn’t mean hecklers get to shut down campus debate, WASH. P OST (Mar. 24, 2022), https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/03/24/free-speech-doesnt-mean-hecklers-get-shut-down-campus-debate/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/03/24/free-spee.... To the contrary, settled First Amendment law allows many governmental restrictions on heckling to preserve the countervailing interest in free speech. As the California Supreme Court stated in In re Kay, 464 P.2d 142, 149 (Cal. 1970), “the state retains a legitimate concern in ensuring that some individuals’ unruly assertion of their rights of free expression does not imperil other citizens’ rights of free association and discussion.” Thus, even in public forums such as the public streets, sidewalks, and parks, where free speech rights have greatest latitude, it is well-settled that the First Amendment allows the imposition of reasonable content-neutral time, place, and manner restrictions. See, e.g., Frisby v. Schultz, 487 U.S. 474, 487-88 (1988)."
- anigbrowl 3y ago
  Unless the government is doing the heckling all this is irrelevant. Oddly, there's been a conspicuous absence of 'free speech absolutists' throwing their bodies on the line to defend things like libraries and drag shows from hecklers, threats of violence, and (in some jurisdictions) government suppression.
- raincom 3y ago
  Government can sponsor censorship through private entities such as non profits, think tanks, chairs, activist organizations, etc. So many ways, these days!!

Both sound like they're protected by the first amendment to me. If people are booing you and telling you to get off the proverbial stage, you may be at a public impasse.

mhb 3y ago

No. The (US) first amendment protects citizens from government censorship and doesn't necessarily apply to private venues. Heckling someone stifles that person's right to express their ideas. Free speech is meant to protect the expression of ideas. Preventing someone from speaking is an act of silencing rather than an act of expressing an idea. Usually speakers at events are invited and the host has given them a platform. Disrupting them denies them that platform without providing a meaningful counter-argument or alternative viewpoint. Free speech requires an environment where ideas can be freely exchanged and debated. If one party is prevented from speaking, then no meaningful dialogue can occur. Arguing that heckling is a form of free speech creates a false equivalence between expressing an opposing viewpoint and actively suppressing someone else's speech.

smoldesu 3y ago
> The (US) first amendment protects citizens from government censorship and doesn't necessarily apply to private venues. I agree. Read the wording of the report, and it very clearly draws the line at what "shouting down" means: https://5666503.fs1.hubspotusercontent-na1.net/hubfs/5666503/CFSR%202024_final.pdf https://5666503.fs1.hubspotusercontent-na1.net/hubfs/5666503... They sampled students by asking them if they approve of three protesting scenarios, two nonviolent and one not. The statistic referenced in the title explicitly refers to the students who approve of nonviolent, nonobstructive protest. There is a specific, discrete and defined category for "Using violence to stop a campus speech." My original comment holds true under federal jurisdiction, as far as I can tell. Speech is speech.
- mhb 3y ago
  I'm not sure what you're arguing. The first amendment is mainly incidental here since most of these places are not public universities. Preventing someone from speaking, as by heckling them, is not speech.
  - anigbrowl 3y ago
    Of course it is, even if the speech is no more nuanced than 'shut up and go away.'
    - mhb 3y ago
      Of course it's not. An audience can leave. Disrupting a speech and preventing others from hearing what someone has to say is not an exercise of free speech.
      - deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
      - smoldesu 3y ago
        If you create a public event on public property, you acknowledge that anyone can attend and exercise their rights adjacent to your event. Your only path of recourse for stopping a heckler is using the police, who cannot act on lawful public expression like heckling. Otherwise, today in the United States, you are out of luck. Any public venue where you have the right to speak to the public, you will be attended by people with the right to speak louder than you. That is part of the problem of using public property as a venue for a controversial speech. You have no right protecting you from interruption, ignorance or legal protest. If you are not hosting a public event, and it is on private property, then the host reserves the right to demand a guest to leave. In public, the ideals of heckling are directly consistent with protected, legal speech.
        mhb 3y ago
        Unsurprisingly, and despite your imaginings, you're wrong. The police will intervene on public property to remove hecklers who are prohibiting others from speaking. Today, in the United States. This letter from the dean of Stanford Law School apologizing for the heckling of a speaker there is a good place to start reading: https://www.thefire.org/research-learn/letter-stanford-law-school-dean-jenny-martinez-campus-community-march-22-2023 https://www.thefire.org/research-learn/letter-stanford-law-s... "Of course, protests are in some instances protected by the First Amendment, but the First Amendment does not give protestors a “heckler’s veto.” As First Amendment scholar Dean Erwin Chemerinsky has written, “Freedom of speech does not protect a right to shout down others so they cannot be heard.” Erwin Chemerinsky & Howard Gillman, Free speech doesn’t mean hecklers get to shut down campus debate, WASH. P OST (Mar. 24, 2022), https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/03/24/free-speech-doesnt-mean-hecklers-get-shut-down-campus-debate/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/03/24/free-spee.... To the contrary, settled First Amendment law allows many governmental restrictions on heckling to preserve the countervailing interest in free speech. As the California Supreme Court stated in In re Kay, 464 P.2d 142, 149 (Cal. 1970), “the state retains a legitimate concern in ensuring that some individuals’ unruly assertion of their rights of free expression does not imperil other citizens’ rights of free association and discussion.” Thus, even in public forums such as the public streets, sidewalks, and parks, where free speech rights have greatest latitude, it is well-settled that the First Amendment allows the imposition of reasonable content-neutral time, place, and manner restrictions. See, e.g., Frisby v. Schultz, 487 U.S. 474, 487-88 (1988)."
anigbrowl 3y ago
Unless the government is doing the heckling all this is irrelevant. Oddly, there's been a conspicuous absence of 'free speech absolutists' throwing their bodies on the line to defend things like libraries and drag shows from hecklers, threats of violence, and (in some jurisdictions) government suppression.
raincom 3y ago
Government can sponsor censorship through private entities such as non profits, think tanks, chairs, activist organizations, etc. So many ways, these days!!