4 ms·

Yeah, no. You can say a lot of things about Ken White, but saying that he conflates the 1st Amendment and Free Speech is one thing he does not do. There's a t

Yeah, no. You can say a lot of things about Ken White, but saying that he conflates the 1st Amendment and Free Speech is one thing he does not do. There's a ton of evidence out there where he is very specific about the differences between the 1st amendment and free speech. A 10 second google found: https://popehat.substack.com/p/our-fundamental-right-to-shame-and https://popehat.substack.com/p/our-fundamental-right-to-sham...

SenAnder 3y ago
Let me be more precise then: he shows little concern for free speech outside a legalistic understanding. From https://popehat.substack.com/p/my-free-speech-means-you-have-to https://popehat.substack.com/p/my-free-speech-means-you-have... People who are sincerely concerned about free expression, people I admire and respect, argue that we must avoid “manipulative” and “ad hominem” criticism to protect speech — without really engaging the problem that both the critic and the criticized are people with free speech rights and interests. Where others see a problem (e.g. cherry-picking content from Twitter and framing it as the norm, or any other dishonest, manipulative framing, or complaining about the general culture of shaming), he throws his hands up with "technically not libel I guess". He wants a precise definition that could be written into a law or contract, before acknowledging any complaint as valid.
- eapressoandcats 3y ago
  I think he is merely pointing out that you can’t just say “someone is doing something that harms me as a result of my speech” and call that censorship. Otherwise literally no one could ever make any decision based on someone’s speech, which is insane. The reason he is asking for precision is because ultimately it is helpful to actually engage with the question of how do we allow debate without turning things into a mess, and that likely requires making some normative statement about what should and should not be ok to do in response to speech.
- jcranmer 3y ago
  The fundamental paradox of free speech is that protection of speakers from consequences of their free speech necessarily imposes on others' free speech, while not providing that protection also imposes on the speaker's free speech. No matter how you want to draw that line, you end up hurting somebody. SCOTUS has essentially "solved" the problem by deciding that the government just can't ever decide how to draw the line. If you look at the history of free speech cases, SCOTUS almost invariably decides to permit the speech, pushing the bar for illegality further and further back. Private parties suing each other for violating free speech is essentially non-justiciable (okay, there's defamation, but the grounds for defamation are very extreme in the US so as to be almost never applicable, as Twitter will find out multiple times in the next few months). If you're running a social media site, well, you similarly have to face these conundrums. But if you're reliant on advertisers for your income, you'll also find that you can't just nope out of it. Mike Masnick has a good guide on just how difficult it is for these companies (https://www.techdirt.com/2022/11/02/hey-elon-let-me-help-you-speed-run-the-content-moderation-learning-curve/ https://www.techdirt.com/2022/11/02/hey-elon-let-me-help-you...), which I'm sure Popehat would endorse. At the end of the day, you can't win. You have to piss off somebody. And, personally, I'm not going to side with the faction that wants to deny my right to existence.

SenAnder 3y ago

Let me be more precise then: he shows little concern for free speech outside a legalistic understanding. From https://popehat.substack.com/p/my-free-speech-means-you-have-to https://popehat.substack.com/p/my-free-speech-means-you-have... People who are sincerely concerned about free expression, people I admire and respect, argue that we must avoid “manipulative” and “ad hominem” criticism to protect speech — without really engaging the problem that both the critic and the criticized are people with free speech rights and interests. Where others see a problem (e.g. cherry-picking content from Twitter and framing it as the norm, or any other dishonest, manipulative framing, or complaining about the general culture of shaming), he throws his hands up with "technically not libel I guess". He wants a precise definition that could be written into a law or contract, before acknowledging any complaint as valid.

eapressoandcats 3y ago
I think he is merely pointing out that you can’t just say “someone is doing something that harms me as a result of my speech” and call that censorship. Otherwise literally no one could ever make any decision based on someone’s speech, which is insane. The reason he is asking for precision is because ultimately it is helpful to actually engage with the question of how do we allow debate without turning things into a mess, and that likely requires making some normative statement about what should and should not be ok to do in response to speech.
jcranmer 3y ago
The fundamental paradox of free speech is that protection of speakers from consequences of their free speech necessarily imposes on others' free speech, while not providing that protection also imposes on the speaker's free speech. No matter how you want to draw that line, you end up hurting somebody. SCOTUS has essentially "solved" the problem by deciding that the government just can't ever decide how to draw the line. If you look at the history of free speech cases, SCOTUS almost invariably decides to permit the speech, pushing the bar for illegality further and further back. Private parties suing each other for violating free speech is essentially non-justiciable (okay, there's defamation, but the grounds for defamation are very extreme in the US so as to be almost never applicable, as Twitter will find out multiple times in the next few months). If you're running a social media site, well, you similarly have to face these conundrums. But if you're reliant on advertisers for your income, you'll also find that you can't just nope out of it. Mike Masnick has a good guide on just how difficult it is for these companies (https://www.techdirt.com/2022/11/02/hey-elon-let-me-help-you-speed-run-the-content-moderation-learning-curve/ https://www.techdirt.com/2022/11/02/hey-elon-let-me-help-you...), which I'm sure Popehat would endorse. At the end of the day, you can't win. You have to piss off somebody. And, personally, I'm not going to side with the faction that wants to deny my right to existence.