8 ms·
Free speech on one hand, legal system capture on the other.
by kubb 6mo ago
Free speech on one hand, legal system capture on the other.
- SauntSolaire 6mo agoThere's (perhaps unfortunately) nothing stopping you from signing away your freedom of speech.
- FpUser 6mo agoIn a normal society courts should be protecting from signing away basic freedoms
- 0x3f 6mo agoWhat are 'basic freedoms'?
- ceejayoz 6mo agoFree speech?
- 0x3f 6mo agoSo I can't sign an exclusive book deal? Or write for a newspaper?
- ceejayoz 6mo agoExclusive book deals tend to have defined timespans. I'm not clear on the newspaper example; do you think reporters aren't allowed to write stuff outside their job? Plenty of reporters publish books.
- 0x3f 6mo agoNo I just mean in the sense that I give over the rights to my own words. I can't repeat them outside of the context that I've agreed to. They were both examples of the same kind of agreement. They'll keep those rights well after I'm dead, by the way.
- TheOtherHobbes 6mo agoYou're not giving over the rights, you're selling the right to profit from them under contract. You can argue that contract law is essentially a battle of relative political and economic power, and IP and employment contracts will always be unfair unless limits are set by statute and enforced enthusiastically. And personally I would. But generally you're signing away the rights to specific text, not the insights or commentary in that text, and if you freelance there's nothing to stop you making your points through some other channel, and/or some other text. If you're a full-time employee then the usual agreement is that your words (code) are work product and owned by your employer, and you're in that situation because your political and economic power is relatively limited.
- mikkupikku 6mo ago> Exclusive book deals tend to have defined timespans Good. We have "enumerate[d] [at least one] inaliable basic [freedom] that peopke should be able to deal in". Of course, we can quibble over the permissible duration of such timespans, but I think the point has been made clear.
- ceejayoz 6mo agoJust to be clear: you're asserting that "there are some inalienable rights" can be debunked by the existance of one that is not inalienable? That's not how this works.
- mikkupikku 6mo agoWe're talking about whether people should be permitted to sign away their right to speech. I think you've conceded that such is permissible at least for a limited duration. Shall we quibble the permissible durations, or are you done?
- ceejayoz 6mo agoSure; we have to resolve conflicts between two sets of people with rights sometimes. The inalienable right to free speech doesn't extend to defamation and fraud; the inalienable right to freedom of movement doesn't apply to jailed murderers. Unconscionability is a bit like obscenity; hard to perfectly define, but sometimes quite clear.
- SauntSolaire 6mo ago> The inalienable right to free speech doesn't extend to defamation and fraud You have a strange definition of "inalienable".
- ceejayoz 6mo agoNot really; it's a conflict between two groups and sets of rights. I have the inalienable right to not be defamed and defrauded. Now we have to resolve the contradiction as a society. That it's sometimes messy doesn't mean we ditch the concept of rights.
- mcbutterbunz 6mo agoThose that are deemed inalienable.
- 0x3f 6mo agoPlease enumerate these inaliable basic freedoms that I should not be able to deal in.
- ceejayoz 6mo agoThe US will not permit you to sign yourself into slavery, as an example.
- 0x3f 6mo agoOnly for a very narrow definition of slavery. Arguably constructing society such that it costs so much to just exist (for example, by artificially restricting housing supply) and thus you have to work is not all that different to slavery. I would say the dollar is but company scrip with better PR.
- ceejayoz 6mo ago> Only for a very narrow definition of slavery. Good. We have "enumerate[d] [at least one] inaliable basic [freedom] that I should not be able to deal in".
- pessimizer 6mo agoIf you don't believe that people should be able to sell themselves into slavery, you should start by offering your list. If you do believe that people should be able to sell themselves into slavery, then unlimited freedom of contract is a basic freedom for you. What you shouldn't do is pretend not to understand.
- 0x3f 6mo agoI'm not the one making a positive claim. I haven't even claimed such rights exist so why on earth would be the expectation be that I list them? You've assumed that I believe in this shared fiction. We sell ourselves into a form of slavery every day. Some would argue that is a big driver of our current society and way of life.
- AndrewKemendo 6mo agoYou can’t get people to try to break out of a prison they don’t think they are in
- nativeit 6mo agoSpeech, for example.
- SauntSolaire 6mo agoThat would also preclude non-disclosure agreements. I'm curious if you also find those unreasonable?
- FpUser 6mo agoDepends on what type of non-disclosure. Disclosing technical guarded and not publicly known technical know-how - I am ok with those. Disclosing that boss treats people like trash should be allowed and I think lawmakers should have enough intelligence in their brains to make laws accordingly.
- SauntSolaire 6mo agoI get that you're not a free speech maximalist, but that's still signing away a basic freedom.
- wtallis 6mo ago> Disclosing technical guarded and not publicly known technical know-how - I am ok with those. I would love to see NDAs for trade secrets limited in a way that incentivizes companies to rely on patent protection instead, where the system is set up to ensure that knowledge eventually becomes public record and freely usable by anyone. It would be very interesting to see how eg. the tech industry would change if trade secret protection were limited to a meaningfully shorter duration than patents.
- dragonwriter 6mo agoBoth non-disparagement and non-disclosure agreements should—just as many jurisdictions have for non-compete agreements, which do not even implicate free speech the way the others do—be sharply limited as a matter of public policy (non-disparagement even moreso than non-disclosure.) Both are routinely used to inflict public harm for private gain, and government enforcement of either is in tension with freedom of speech; while there is a legitimate case to be made that non-disclosure agreements within certain bounds have a certain degree of necessity in enabling legitimate business, this is a much harder case to make for non-disparagement agreements, at least for ones that are not temporally bounded within an active business relationship.
- FireBeyond 6mo agoWashington state does this with some parts of tenant law. There are certain tenant rights about habitability (heating, etc.) that are protected by law, and cannot be nullified by a rental/lease contract, even with consideration. The law states that the tenant legally cannot waive those rights.
- oliwarner 6mo agoIs it freedom if you can't make an informed choice to sell it?
- mcbutterbunz 6mo agoI would argue yes. If you have the choice to sell to sell it, you can be forced to sell it. One can still give up their basic rights if they so choose. The woman in question can cease from disparaging Meta for the rest of her life. A person can opt to enter in to being a slave to another for the rest of their life. I can choose to follow one religion or another or none at all. But one should never have those options taken from them.
- thayne 6mo agoYou just lost your job, through no fault of your own, or maybe because you did the right thing and blew the whistle on illegal and/or unethical behavior. You don't know how long it will be before you find a new job or how you are going to pay the bills until then. Your employer offers you some money to tie you over, and maybe some resources to tide you over until you get a new job, but you have to agree to a hundred pages of legalese. And you only have a few hours to decide, not enough time to have a lawyer look at it, even if you could afford to pay a lawyer. You are highly stressed, so even if you take the time to read it, you probably don't take it all in, and feel pressured to agree. And your employer also makes vague threats that about what will happen if you don't sign it, like having a hard time finding a new job or maybe having legal action taken against you. Does that seem like a free informed decision? Looking at it another way, anti-disparagement agreements are basically bribes to keep quiet even if disclosure would benefit the general population.
- mcbutterbunz 6mo agoI understand freedom of speech and I understand she's free to speak but there may be consequences. I understand that there are huge complexities in the legal system. I understand you can enter into agreements (part of your speech) that effectively gives away your speech. But if you step back and look at this situation, it's just fucked up that a corporation can do this to you. If freedom of speech is supposed to be inalienable, these types of agreements should not be legal. disclaimer: She lives in the UK and I'm speaking from a US perspective.
- thayne 6mo ago> She lives in the UK and I'm speaking from a US perspective. But the contract is being enforced from the US.
- fmajid 6mo agoThe UK is far worse, with draconian libel laws where the burden of proof is on the defendant. Originally designed to stop uppity commoners from challenging the aristocrats, now used by oligarchs to silence journalists.
- zaphar 6mo agoThe corporation did not do this to her. It was a two party agreement. She bears just as much blame for the agreement as the corporation. She entered into it willingly. And that does and should have consequences. Morally speaking I think the company is reprehensible. But nor do I think contact law should be changed because of it.
- rkomorn 6mo agoI'd agree with you if there wasn't a significant power imbalance that virtually always skews way more in favor of the corporation. It is far more likely that an individual would do best to agree to a corporation's terms even if they favor the corporation than the other way around.
- zaphar 6mo ago
- AndrewKemendo 6mo agoWhich means it’s not a right
- mikkupikku 6mo agoIn Germany, this sort of thinking is the reason you can't release anything into the public domain. People are presumed to be too stupid to be trusted with the decision to renounce their copyright and so they are "protected" from this possibility.
- bell-cot 6mo agoDid you mean to say "presumed to be too stupid, or too easily conned or coerced"?
- mikkupikku 6mo agoHave you ever been conned into releasing something into the public domain? Me either. Its not a real problem. But signing over the rights to some corporate party? That happens all the time, and is permitted in Germany. Germany is being very stupid here. They're letting abstract reasoning about principles blind them to common sense (many such cases in German history.)
- groundzeros2015 6mo agoFreedom of speech is that you are allowed to express any viewpoint, not make any sounds with your mouth or disclose any information.