Those who exercise free speech should also defend it even when it’s offensive • Hacker News Board

Re: Those who exercise free speech should also defend it even when it’s offensive

#101

Post by kmlx » Thu, Jun 25, 2020, 8:07 AM UTC

kanox wrote: post #93

phkahler wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> There is no "right" way to convey the issue above without offending someone. You are not responsible for those people being offended. If people actually respond that way to your efforts they look stupid. Just carry on doing what is right. Most of them are not actually offended but are claiming you may be offensive to someone else.

> You are not responsible for those people being offended. This is objectively false, you can get fired for offending people both at your job or outside it.

some of those companies don't really deserve to be trading.

i remember how back in my youth if i said something offensive against the government i would lose my job and be sent to a forced labour camp. that was during communism.

history keeps repeating itself.

Re: Those who exercise free speech should also defend it even when it’s offensive

#102

Post by kmlx » Thu, Jun 25, 2020, 8:09 AM UTC

romwell wrote: post #59

legostormtroopr wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It implies Floyd somehow deserved to be shot in the back and killed. No it doesn't. This is wild hyperbole. No one deserves to be shot in the back. However, people are painting him out to be an angel - quite literally there are multiple artworks of George Floyd with a halo and wings [1]. The reality is he was human, and one with a complicated criminal past who was jailed 8 times [2] including for drug offenses. Is…

>Is saying that someone with a criminal record like that "didn't live a virtuous life" really a fireable offense? Talk about wild hyperboles! “In the wake of George Floyd’s death, most people in the country have framed this as an act of racism,” Moloney’s email continued. “I don’t think we know that. Many people have claimed that racism is a major problem in police forces. I don’t think we know that.” The Chaplain ha…

everything you quoted is... objectively true

Re: Those who exercise free speech should also defend it even when it’s offensive

#103

Post by cgb223 » Thu, Jun 25, 2020, 8:09 AM UTC

AHappyCamper wrote: post #78

I understand that there are a lot of people who are hurting right now, and I empathize with their pain, but how can we share out most wonderful and beautiful ideas with each other or convey important information to the public if we believe there might be serious reprisals against us if we "say the wrong thing". For example, I personally helped work against slavery on the Black Market in the Middle East, and I wanted…

FWIW I would be very interested in hearing about your experiences doing that

Sounds like something that had a huge impact on a terrible system in the world that most people aren’t aware of.

If you feel comfortable, can you tell us a little bit about it here?

Re: Those who exercise free speech should also defend it even when it’s offensive

#104

Post by TuringTest » Thu, Jun 25, 2020, 8:10 AM UTC

AHappyCamper wrote: post #78

I understand that there are a lot of people who are hurting right now, and I empathize with their pain, but how can we share out most wonderful and beautiful ideas with each other or convey important information to the public if we believe there might be serious reprisals against us if we "say the wrong thing". For example, I personally helped work against slavery on the Black Market in the Middle East, and I wanted…

> how can we share out most wonderful and beautiful ideas with each other

The trick is to create channels with limited audiences, where you can set an expectation of which ideas are acceptable and which are not.*

It always has been, but the the arrival of new communication methods has disrupted the traditional channels, and now every idea is propagated to a much larger and looser audience, which aren't aware or don't share the expectations of the sender.

We need to rebuild the architecture of communication channels around this principle of limited audiences sharing a common understanding, and reshape the current "free" massive communication tools so that they respect this principle instead of exploiting the benefits of popularising aggressive messages for their shock value.

This compartmentalisation of channels would do much more for freedom of expression than the current "everyone gets a distorted and contextless version of the original message and can have their say".

* By the way, this is the reason why explicit Codes of Conduct are a good thing for online projects. Without them, you simply get a default implicit code of conduct based on the expectations of the dominant group; which is not a good solution for people coming from any other group.

Re: Those who exercise free speech should also defend it even when it’s offensive

#105

Post by AHappyCamper » Thu, Jun 25, 2020, 8:10 AM UTC

Thorrez wrote: post #97

AHappyCamper wrote: post #78

I understand that there are a lot of people who are hurting right now, and I empathize with their pain, but how can we share out most wonderful and beautiful ideas with each other or convey important information to the public if we believe there might be serious reprisals against us if we "say the wrong thing". For example, I personally helped work against slavery on the Black Market in the Middle East, and I wanted…

You could always say "underground market". Just make sure there aren't any hobbits around.

Ha! There is nothing illegal about an underground market. And the real issue is: if any use of terminology can get you blacklisted (another potential faux pas) then you end up not being able to say anything. At a certain point, all language becomes not viable because anything could potentially cause offense, so as a result, you just stop talking... even though you're trying to save slaves.

Re: Those who exercise free speech should also defend it even when it’s offensive

#106

Post by Myce » Thu, Jun 25, 2020, 8:11 AM UTC

To me the limit in freedom of speech is when one calls for violence. As I truly believe in free speech, every exception you make to free speech, is arbitrary. If we have to everyone's exceptions into account, it's over with real free speech.

I personally can't be easily hurt by people I don't know well, but also understand that other people are easier hurt. This can be due to their current situation or things from the past that can more easily hurt their feelings.

I also want to stress that there's obviously something as politeness, empathy and social behavior. These should be encouraged at all times. But we all know some people simply can't behave and sometimes you even yourself can make an insulting remark

But due to free of speech, I do believe that people who are rude, insult others and make insensitive jokes, should be allowed to do so. Without any limit. How terrible it is what they say

They practice their freedom of speech. And we shouldn't punish them, other than telling them how we feel about what they say and making clear it can hurt the feelings of others.

On the other side we should invest in becoming more resilent to insults etc.

Obviously I see a task for parents and maybe even schools.

Thet should invest time in teaching children how to deal with rude, insensitive, insulting people and make them more resilient e.g. by boosting their self confidence.

For me that would be the best solution to keep an open society where people can speak freely. Making exceptions will kill it.

After all what can be insulting to person 1 can mean totally nothing to person 2.

Re: Those who exercise free speech should also defend it even when it’s offensive

#107

Post by yc-kraln » Thu, Jun 25, 2020, 8:12 AM UTC

cwhiz wrote: post #34

Shouting people down in public and on the internet doesn’t change opinions. People just talk more quietly or take more care with whom they share their thoughts and opinions. Cancel culture, outrage culture, and the general “social justice” movement is not much more than a wide scale attempt to silence dissenting thought. Build your own bubble, and shout down anyone who thinks or speaks differently. Yell and call it “…

I don't find it to be controversial that questioning someone's humanity or personhood isn't simply "offensive." I find it very surprising that people chanting anti-Semitic nonsense continue to find acceptance and defenders in the United States.

To have a tolerant and open society you need to be intolerant to those who are intolerant. Why is this new or subject to debate?

Re: Those who exercise free speech should also defend it even when it’s offensive

#108

Post by eirini1 » Thu, Jun 25, 2020, 8:13 AM UTC

AHappyCamper wrote: post #105

Thorrez wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could always say "underground market". Just make sure there aren't any hobbits around.

Ha! There is nothing illegal about an underground market. And the real issue is: if any use of terminology can get you blacklisted (another potential faux pas) then you end up not being able to say anything. At a certain point, all language becomes not viable because anything could potentially cause offense, so as a result, you just stop talking... even though you're trying to save slaves.

not all, there are plenty of ways to phrase something without offending people - unless of course the content of what you are saying is itself, offensive :)

Re: Those who exercise free speech should also defend it even when it’s offensive

#109

Post by dependenttypes » Thu, Jun 25, 2020, 8:14 AM UTC

lmm wrote: post #94

api wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think part of it is the decay of discourse. People don't know how to discuss ideas in good faith. They just know how to troll, yell, make unfounded wild accusations, and meme. Basically we have a junior high level of public discourse. People aren't open to hearing reasoned arguments either. A reasoned argument doesn't deliver the dopamine hit of a rant or a catchy meme. In that environment the only thing possible i…

It's not "social media". It's Twitter, specifically, because of the design decisions of that platform (obvious things like the message length limit, and slightly more subtle things like the way that replies from other people are hidden, encouraging you to pile in).

While it is certainly worse on Twitter I would argue that the other social media sites are not that much better. See reddit or facebook for example.

Re: Those who exercise free speech should also defend it even when it’s offensive

#110

Post by arethuza » Thu, Jun 25, 2020, 8:14 AM UTC

gentleman11 wrote: post #65

There are a lot of downvoted posts in this thread that make reasonable arguments and that are promoting discussion. I disagree with a lot of them, but it’s awkward for this to be a story where people are heavily downvoting people they disagree with

As far as I know the convention of HN has always been that downvotes can be used to express strong disagreement and that discussion of downvoting is regarded as unproductive and a bit boring.