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Freedom of expression is at a ten-year low globally, study says

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Re: Freedom of expression is at a ten-year low globally, study says

#131

Post by cortesoft »

cortesoft wrote: post #125
F-0X wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it? If A says to B, "don't vaccinate your kids", B complies, and then B's child dies of a disease it could have been vaccinated against, you would not say A had any culpability?

Let's keep going, though... there IS a non-zero chance that your kid can die from a vaccine. It is very very rare, and more kids will die from not getting a vaccine than from getting one, but there will exist a parent who can say truthfully that vaccines killed their kid. Can they then argue that a pro-vaccine person killed their kid? Can they sue their doctor? If we allow this line of reasoning, where does it stop?…

Someone made an interesting counterpoint and deleted their comment while I was replying, so here is my reply to that:

I don't disagree with being upset with antivaxxers and thinking they are causing real harm to our society.

However, I think the harm is outweighed by the benefit of allowing people to make whatever arguments they want in public (much like I think the risk of dying from a vaccine is worth it because of the reduced risk of dying from the disease the vaccine is preventing). The alternative is having to set some sort of 'risk threshold', where you aren't allowed to argue for something that increases risk more than x%..... but that gets really complicated, because most of the times you are advocating to increase risk IN RETURN FOR SOMETHING ELSE.

For example, driving a car is EXTREMELY risky (and kills way more people than die from not taking a vaccine). However, most people feel the benefit of auto transport is worth the risk. However, that is very subjective, and it would be difficult to logically and objectively argue against someone who says that risk is not worth it, and we should outlaw cars.... and anyone who advocates driving is responsible for every automobile death.

Re: Freedom of expression is at a ten-year low globally, study says

#132

Post by BryantD »

cortesoft wrote: post #125
F-0X wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it? If A says to B, "don't vaccinate your kids", B complies, and then B's child dies of a disease it could have been vaccinated against, you would not say A had any culpability?

Let's keep going, though... there IS a non-zero chance that your kid can die from a vaccine. It is very very rare, and more kids will die from not getting a vaccine than from getting one, but there will exist a parent who can say truthfully that vaccines killed their kid. Can they then argue that a pro-vaccine person killed their kid? Can they sue their doctor? If we allow this line of reasoning, where does it stop?…

This is exactly the kind of discussion I was thinking of, FWIW. I tend to agree with this line of thought — responsibility is too diffuse in this case.

So... what are other options here? Cause it is definitely bad for the public if people stop vaccinating their kids. That’s not a risk, it’s a certainty. It is also fairly clear that a significant enough percentage of people will listen to anti-vaxxers no matter what, and they will move mountains to avoid vaccines.

Re: Freedom of expression is at a ten-year low globally, study says

#133

Post by shoes_for_thee »

spaginal wrote: post #64
shoes_for_thee wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Citation needed. When he sees something he disagrees with he flatly calls it fake and moves on. That's not debate.

But that is where it ends with him. Debate doesn't have to be healthy to still be debate, but he isn't stopping the people from saying the things against him. When you start trying to create laws or compel companies to shut down speech you disagree with or don't like, either through the guise of hate speech laws or "stopping disinformation", that is the scenario we are scared about that is rampant for abuse.

> he isn't stopping the people from saying the things against him.

A) yes, he does. refer to the various people he has paid to stop talking about him through NDAs and catch & kill.

b) yes, he does. refer to the trump campaign's refusal to credential bloomberg most recently.

and various would-if-he-could:

c) refer to trump saying SNL is an attack on his safety, eg.

d) refer to trump referring to any non-fox media as 'the enemy of the people'

e) refer to trump recommending treason charges against NYT.

f) refer to trump recommending treason charges for people who refused to applaud at the state of the union

and on and on and on. there are endless examples of trump requesting legal action against various people "saying things" about him that he doesn't like. those people are only protected by the constitution. i have no interest in creating laws to compel companies to shut down speech i disagree with. i am a free speech absolutist. but a) he does stop people from saying things via civil legal action and b) he would stop people from saying things via criminal action if it were legal to do so.

Re: Freedom of expression is at a ten-year low globally, study says

#134

Post by [deleted] »

oefrha wrote: post #117
bilbo0s wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sigh. Guy, try to be reasonable. Opposition to a political opinion, is itself, a political opinion. What you're asking is that your political opinion be the only one that gets Freedom of Expression, Freedom of Association, Freedom of Speech etc. Because you are explicitly asking that people with opposing political opinions not be given rights of Freedom of Expression and Association.

Opposition to a political opinion is a valid political opinion. You should lose your livelihood for having this political opinion is another valid political opinion, however distasteful. However, there’s a big problem if you’re guaranteed to lose your livelihood when a handful of vocal individuals who otherwise have no associations with you whatsoever hold the aforementioned opinion. Let’s just hope you’re never on t…

[deleted]

Re: Freedom of expression is at a ten-year low globally, study says

#135

Post by tomp »

BryantD wrote: post #73
Reedx wrote: post #7

>"...the desire to have someone force these companies to remove hate speech or misinformation can backfire. To see how, we need look no further than Singapore’s new “fake news” law, which has already been used to force an opposition politician to modify a Facebook post to include the government’s position on the topic he mentioned in his post, along with a large banner across the original saying “False.” This is so o…

When we're considering regulation, it's important to consider the activity we're regulating in context. Here's one extreme: it's legal to light a match. It's not legal to light a match and toss it into a gas pump. We shouldn't regulate speech, but you should own the consequences of your actions -- speech included. If you're spreading anti-vax propaganda, you're complicit in killing kids. It's certainly not as bad as…

> If you're spreading anti-vax propaganda, you're complicit in killing kids.

Also if you're spreading pro-abortion propaganda. And pro-war propaganda. And anti-war propaganda. /s

Obviously ridiculous. Repeat after me: speech is not violence! Only people actually doing violence are violent. Want to criminalize not vaccinating kids? Be my guest, but I'll now and forever support people to campaign against it, and that shouldn't be illegal.

Re: Freedom of expression is at a ten-year low globally, study says

#136

Post by jack_h »

BryantD wrote: post #113
jack_h wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you're spreading anti-vax propaganda, you're complicit in killing kids ... and any restrictions or punishment should reflect that. > If you're spreading pro-vax propaganda, you're complicit in giving kids autism ... and any restrictions or punishment should reflect that. Now I don't agree with the latter in the slightest. However, depending on who is in power and what political and social will exists at a partic…

Laws always vary depending on who's in power and what social and political will exists. The can of worms was opened the minute someone said "The state/community should get to make decisions about what you can and cannot do." Now, it's harder to make those calls for indirect effects, and I definitely believe we should be more careful about it. You're totally correct about the danger. But that doesn't mean we don't hav…

I agree that these discussions are healthy. I would like to explore your initial comment though as we're dealing with culpability and intent.

> When we're considering regulation, it's important to consider the activity we're regulating in context. Here's one extreme: it's legal to light a match. It's not legal to light a match and toss it into a gas pump.

As you allude to intent matters here. Let's assume they went to the gas pump specifically to light a match and throw it into the gas pump. That is very specific and obvious intent and culpability is clear.

Now assume this person was merely lighting a cigarette in front of the pump and an ember falls off and causes a fire. Well the intent was not to set the place ablaze, but they were still either negligent or reckless in their actions, so while they are still culpable, intent is lacking here.

As a third hypothetical let's say they had a matchbook in their pocket and one match is dislodged and rubs between the striker strip and the person's cell phone, thus creating a fire while they're in front of the pump. Their intent was never to light a fire, so what is their culpability here?

Limiting ourselves to matters of scientific inquiry as related to free speech for the moment, how would the idea of culpability and intent as mentioned above factor into this? Someone espousing anti-vax opinions clearly does not have the intent of killing kids, their intent as I understand it is to prevent children from becoming autistic regardless of whether science agrees with them or not. Perhaps they could be considered negligent given current scientific understanding, but how do you even begin to consider culpability?

What if this is an area where science does not have an answer yet, but there's enormous public pressure to outlaw speaking about X or punish those who do. How does intent and culpability factor into this? Is it just "the law says x, you intended to violate it and are going to be held accountable" without any sort of deeper explanation as to why your rights were restricted? What happens if the science settles in the opposite direction as the laws and speech was curtailed wrongly in this specific framework? Similarly what happens if the laws are based on the science of the time, but the science itself discovers it erred in some way thus flipping it from being in agreement with to disagreement with the law?

Lastly how does this extend to matters where science may not provide a useful answer?

I just listened to the oral arguments given for Voisine v. United States and it's very analogous to this line of thinking. I'd highly recommend listening to it and reading the opinion.

Re: Freedom of expression is at a ten-year low globally, study says

#137

Post by cortesoft »

BryantD wrote: post #132
cortesoft wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's keep going, though... there IS a non-zero chance that your kid can die from a vaccine. It is very very rare, and more kids will die from not getting a vaccine than from getting one, but there will exist a parent who can say truthfully that vaccines killed their kid. Can they then argue that a pro-vaccine person killed their kid? Can they sue their doctor? If we allow this line of reasoning, where does it stop?…

This is exactly the kind of discussion I was thinking of, FWIW. I tend to agree with this line of thought — responsibility is too diffuse in this case. So... what are other options here? Cause it is definitely bad for the public if people stop vaccinating their kids. That’s not a risk, it’s a certainty. It is also fairly clear that a significant enough percentage of people will listen to anti-vaxxers no matter what,…

I don't know if there is an option, at least not legislatively. Risk is so subjective, and trying to force people to be 'rational' in their risk assessment is futile. Even if we could force people to be rational, there is still the subjective nature of the 'value' of the risky behavior. I personally think BASE jumping is way too risky for me, but I wouldn't tell someone else that they are irrational for deciding it is worth it for them.

So what do we do? What we are currently doing, really. We try to educate people about vaccines, we pass laws saying unvaccinated kids can't go to public schools without a medical reason (which yes, that loophole will be exploited, but it is an improvement), and we work to reduce the risk as much as we can. We are never going to 'solve' the problem of people making risky decisions that hurt society as a whole, so we just do our best to mitigate where we can, and accept the rest of the risk as just part of being a human in society.

Re: Freedom of expression is at a ten-year low globally, study says

#138

Post by tomp »

a_band wrote: post #32
linuxftw wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We need to declare all speech religious speech. Politics is religion. One religion currently has the upper hand, and it's dividing people.

What would such a declaration do? Religious speech should be protected as much as any other speech.

Not really. You can't be fired for religion. I wonder what would happen if someone (like Damore) said "I religiously believe that women shouldn't work".

Re: Freedom of expression is at a ten-year low globally, study says

#139

Post by banads »

manifestsilence wrote: post #47

There has been a lot of mixing of concepts in this space lately. There is the legal question of government interference with speech, protected by the First Amendment in the US. Then there is the moral issue of deplatforming by corporations. Then there is the moral issue of groups of people bullying a dissenting viewpoint. These are different issues with different levels of severity and different solutions. Anyone who…

>These are different issues with different levels of severity and different solutions.

All of these issues are rooted in the same principle, namely: allowing people to freely express themselves in the face of authority is a net good for human society.

Re: Freedom of expression is at a ten-year low globally, study says

#140

Post by will4274 »

BryantD wrote: post #119
will4274 wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course I intended to convince people. What's your point? Adults are responsible (and in particular, legally responsible) for their own actions, not the people who taught them to act that way.

I think that in general, if there are predictable consequences to an action I take, I have some moral responsibility for those consequences. Don't you?

Non-sequitor. We were talking about legal and you jumped to moral. I don't believe that anybody should have legal consequences for speech that doesn't incite violence or libel.

Even with moral, I'd argue that the consequences have to be reasonable. It's not reasonable to take advice about vaccinations from anybody except a medical professional. I eat junk food and I tell people it's delicious. If some of them hear me say it's delicious, eat some, get fat, and die, I don't feel morally responsible - take advice about your diet from professionals, not from me.

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