251–260 of 506 posts
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That’s exactly my point. Laws restricting speech. Free speech is a utopian nonsense, there are always restrictions (just ask the SEC). It’s just a question of where a society thinks the line should be drawn.
Only one of things you listed (revenge porn) is actually illegal. Republishing publicly available info nor calling someone a bad word is illegal.
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> they trot out Popper quotes about tolerating intolerance. Yup, that's me. What's wrong with that according to you? If your expression is promoting violence, especially violence against a vulnerable group (children, minorities, I'd say even animals), I'm okay with drawing up laws against such things. Thereby reducing freedom of expression. Advertising for instance. If every building/land owner or municipality could…
The issue is that when we abandon the general principle it immediately becomes a question of what speech is ok to ban and this can be weaponized by rivals. People always imagine themselves or people they agree with in the position of determining what gets banned, but they should imagine their political rival or enemy in that position. The free speech principle is about setting the bar such that everyone agrees on the…
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Protection from their perception of threat.
I don’t think anyone needs protection from perception (unless clinical). I do think, however, that as a society we’re doing a terrible job of distinguishing relativism (personal perception) from reality (universal axioms). The idea that someone has their “own truth” separate from the rest of the universe is one of the most absurd ideas in pop culture, imho. That a large portion of the population considers their perce…
As you say, determining and disseminating truth is not straight forward and I think you really have to read between the lines when you hear people say things like "Hear her truth" is that these are often people who allege certain classes of people have long had their actual testimony ignored by society because of who they are. Also most of the time people say this, they're saying this regarding fundamentally uncertain situations where uninvolved parties can never be 100% sure of the truth. So there is a political/practical/contextual aspect to these epistemological statements.
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> I think you'll find a significant portion of the HN userbase supports the idea of the police arresting people for saying racist things on the internet. I genuinely can't wrap my head around how someone could possibly think this is true.
You can do a search for "hate speech" in the HN archive and find plenty of examples. Going down the first page of results, it's about half supporting hate speech as free speech and half against, although the supporting comments have much higher scores. You could make the argument those people think something should be illegal without thinking you should be arrested for doing it, but that's calling them a pack of igno…
Punishing people for "free speech" is a complex topic not a binary decision. Plenty of hateful speech that threatens or harasses could already be deemed a crime if its specific enough. I have no problem with punishing people for saying the same damn things about groups of people. If you say kill all the jews, straight to jail. If you say kill all the Texans likewise straight to jail. It's fundamentally dangerous to leave that unpunished because from like minded people reinforcing each others hate and violence is born both the crazies that pop off and do it and the societal movements which ultimately enact hate on a grand scale.
Everyone has a line. We just disagree where to draw it.
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People on HN and in this thread in particular have such a one sided view of this issue. For some reason people here only think the left is attacking free speech when the truth is that free speech is under attack from both the left and right. One of those two has been much more effective translating these attacks into laws which I would expect to be the most concerning for proponents of free speech and yet it is alway…
Which laws have passed that restrict speech?
https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/florida-don-t-say-gay-bill-des...
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I have not heard any group calling for free speech to be blocked. Who is calling for people to be arrested for what they say? Or to be blocked from being able to say it out loud? I think what you mean is that people are calling for internet platforms to kick out certain groups. This is in no way a call against freedom of speech. I am not sure why people suddenly believe that being for 'free speech' means that other p…
"Freedom of speech" does not mean "the cathedral is allowed to do anything short of putting you in jail to censor and punish your speech". "Freedom of speech" does not just refer to a specific narrowly-defined legal doctrine.
For instance, I suspect if some antisemitic nuts in say, the 1960s, had wanted to buy a full page ad in the NYT with some elders-of-zion type conspiracy ad, complete with hook-nosed caricature of a jewish banker, and the NYT refused to run the ad, nobody would have raised any objection on "free speech" grounds.
Can you think of any examples of extra-legal "free speech as a popular concept", pre-Internet?
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I have not heard any group calling for free speech to be blocked. Who is calling for people to be arrested for what they say? Or to be blocked from being able to say it out loud? I think what you mean is that people are calling for internet platforms to kick out certain groups. This is in no way a call against freedom of speech. I am not sure why people suddenly believe that being for 'free speech' means that other p…
You should spend some time on a college campus. Shouting down speakers and deplatforming non-progressives is more common than one might think.
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> I have not heard any group calling for free speech to be blocked. Who is calling for people to be arrested for what they say? The way it works is: "Sure I support free speech, but saying X is not free speech and saying it should be against the law because its offensive and might incite violence or something." If you object, they trot out Popper quotes about tolerating intolerance.
> they trot out Popper quotes about tolerating intolerance. Yup, that's me. What's wrong with that according to you? If your expression is promoting violence, especially violence against a vulnerable group (children, minorities, I'd say even animals), I'm okay with drawing up laws against such things. Thereby reducing freedom of expression. Advertising for instance. If every building/land owner or municipality could…
Well for starters you are quoting him wrong and by the formulations that you, yourself are using, you, yourself, ought to be silenced through violence.
When Popper talks about tolerance he is talking about tolerance of ideas not tolerance as in yay oppressed groups, it's not a paradox unless you use that meaning. Even the Wikipedia article points to this.
As long as you can talk about things you ought to use that, it is when a group tries to forcefully silence other that that group, specifically, has to be repressed through violence, because otherwise they are able to impose their intolerance of ideas upon the system and will eventually overtake it.
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How many immigrants do you think grew up the same way? Hint: almost none, as the United States is the only country that enshrines true freedom of speech as an unalienable and fundamental right. This is probably considered "hate-speech" in this day and age, but immigration, shockingly, has cons as well.
"I know no country in which, generally speaking, there is less independence of mind and true freedom of discussion than in America." - Alexis de Tocqueville
I really can't think it's relevant in a thread steeped in talk about Twitter and deplatforming on social media.
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Could someone explain to me why the mass downvoting of the above comment is not hypocritical? I believe it is, but would be interested in hearing opposing thoughts.
Because Hackernews is read by humans, humans are still emotional herd animals, and the guidelines to downvoting are guidelines, not rules which can get you banned for downvoting what you disagree with. Voting has very little to do with anything in these discussions, and it has been that way for years now.
Immature undergrads shouting down speech they disagree with on campus has been going on for years too, no?