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[Freedom Of Speech]: More Than The First Amendment
AngelHedgie
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Registered User regular
Since we've had a number of conversations on here that have wound up dealing, at least tangentially, with the concept of free speech (both online and off), it's worth exploring the elephant that always winds up in these threads. Over the past few years, we've seen the position of "free speech" raised in a number of arenas, being used to argue for why social media needs to be regulated with a light hand, or that bigotry should be allowed to be expressed publicly. The concept of "free speech absolutism" seems to be something bordering on sacrosanct in the tech community, which has had a number of repercussions for our society as a whole. And we seem to be ignoring an important question -
Is freedom of speech a means, or an end?
For myself, I'd argue that in the long run, freedom of speech is the former - we push for it in order to further the ends that we want to see for society, like equality and justice. And as such, being a means, that means that it has to bee tempered in balance to those ends that we're looking to achieve - for example, if allowing bigots to openly espouse their hatred causes those they target to retreat from open participation in society, then we have a case where freedom of speech is undermining the ends that we are looking to achieve. The problem that I see in the conversation about free speech is that more and more, it's treated as the latter - that free speech is the end, and thus should be defended even if it may be undermining other ends we look to achieve. The core conflict stems from the fact that "free speech absolutism" is ultimately an impossible position to hold, because of the chilling effect of hate speech - those targeted by hate speech will be forced out by it, conversely keeping them in the public conversation means not allowing hate speech to push them out. Ultimately, a decision has to be made as to who will be kept in the discussion.
Is freedom of speech a means, or an end?
For myself, I'd argue that in the long run, freedom of speech is the former - we push for it in order to further the ends that we want to see for society, like equality and justice. And as such, being a means, that means that it has to bee tempered in balance to those ends that we're looking to achieve - for example, if allowing bigots to openly espouse their hatred causes those they target to retreat from open participation in society, then we have a case where freedom of speech is undermining the ends that we are looking to achieve. The problem that I see in the conversation about free speech is that more and more, it's treated as the latter - that free speech is the end, and thus should be defended even if it may be undermining other ends we look to achieve. The core conflict stems from the fact that "free speech absolutism" is ultimately an impossible position to hold, because of the chilling effect of hate speech - those targeted by hate speech will be forced out by it, conversely keeping them in the public conversation means not allowing hate speech to push them out. Ultimately, a decision has to be made as to who will be kept in the discussion.
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Well, that's part of the problem. Another is that Americans tend to be really myopic on it, due to the cultural baggage around the First Amendment as well. We tend to dismiss the idea that words have power culturally - I remember being taught "sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me" as a child, and I doubt I'm the only one.
If we go even deeper, not just to freedom of speech but just freedom in general, then the basic tenant must first be accepted that infinite freedom can never be achieved on this planet. To grant infinite freedom to everyone would require infinite resources, and it's a finite planet with finite resources, so it's just not possible.
Once you accept the basic tenant that available freedom must be less than the ideal infinite, then the question becomes: *what* limits can we place on freedom so that we balance them equally among everyone?
All these various problems, to me, can be boiled down to that question it seems. As one extreme example, we accept generally in society that people should not have the freedom to murder other people, because that in turn restricts the freedom of those targets to keep on living (thus, the freedom is unbalanced). Contrived, a bit silly in the extreme perhaps, but that concept of balancing the freedom level equally I think can be applied to other aspects also.
As a more narrow example, freedom of speech in the US does not cover yelling "fire" in a crowded theater. Why? Because the negative effect on reducing the freedom of others in that theater (indirectly through harm, i.e. impacting their freedom to be happy and unharmed) outweighs the positive freedom of one person getting to yell "fire" in that situation.
So yeah, to me, freedom of *anything* (speech or otherwise) can't be absolute. It'd be nice if it *could* be, but it can't be, because in a finite system eventually that infinite freedom for one person will curtail the freedom of another. (Hate speech fits into this model as well, since the freedom to say hateful things directly impacts the freedom of your targets to leave unharrassed lives, avoid persecution, or any of the other billions of repercussions).
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?
Seriously?
Like.....why!?
goes off to contemplate how the world keeps getting crazier every time he looks out the window
3DS: 0473-8507-2652
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PSN: AbEntropy
So I went looking, because I found this yet another crazy thing I learned today:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shouting_fire_in_a_crowded_theater
Turns out it was just a metaphor anyway, although there are real-world examples cited at the end.
Also, it should be noted that the overturn still acknowledges that unprotected speech should include:
So my direct analogy turns out to be wayyyyyy out of date, but I think the point stands (and the eventual overturn of the actual issue actually can be framed as part of my earlier point: it's about figuring out where to draw the lines limiting freedom to make sure the total available freedom is equally balanced for all, and the overturn was attempting to refine the balance in this use case). Still, good to correct my lack of info on the phrase, so thanks for the heads up!
What we want is a flourishing ecosystem of ideas (rather than a market place). Any one idea taking over and not letting the others survive would be bad so sometimes that means intervention.
This is such a radical revision of the idea of a freedom, to the point of undercutting the entire idea of it.
Traditionally what most people think of as freedom is called by philosophy negative liberty. Which is that there is not an external restraint on your actions. A law that says "you cant post on social media"
As contrasted with positive liberty, which is the access to the means. Not having a cellphone restricts your positive liberty to post on social media.
We recognize rights of both types, guns and healthcare as examples.
What you are arguing for is in essence:
Restraints on the negative rights of free speech, not because of the traditional harm arguements(incitement etc), but in order to better curate the pool of ideas.
That isn't a right then. Construct any other common right this way. "You have the right to vote, unless your party is too popular, then you dont", "the right to worship as you see fit, unless one denomination is too dominant."
Doesn't work
Freedoms are about the individual, not the "ecology". They have to be, otherwise you just fall down the utilitarian abyss.
These days, I lean more toward the idea that most of the "freedoms" our civilization are built around are the freedom of the powerful to prey on the weak without the weak being allowed to collective for defense. Absolute freedom of speech is usually applied in that manner.
That’s why I didn’t call it a right.
We're literally talking about killing an idea by limiting speech so as to disappear that idea from all mention.
Trump Order to Withhold Money from Colleges that Don't Promise to Protect Free Speech
Obligatory Citation of the Paradox of Tolerance as a general good guideline to operate under when attempting to balance individual rights with maintaining a society that doesn't go off the rails and tries to get its Ethnonationalism on.
The narrow definition for government action is fine.
Also you get to listen to Karl Popper drag Plato, if I remember it right.
Information security has always been a losing battle. China's firewall will fall, and in addition to everyone learning about Tiananmen square, tools will be created to circumvent all speech control.
Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
Trump and this order of his isn't actually about upholding free speech.
It's about punishing universities for not agreeing to host neocon/alt-right speakers who have odious platforms.
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
Reading the actual text, it's about giving colleges some homework regarding student loans, and there's a little bit in there reminding them to obey the law regarding free speech on campus
Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
"curating the pool of ideas" as you call it is about stopping harm. That's the entire point. It's the paradox of tolerance.
That's not the point of it though, which is super obvious if you actually listen to conservatives talk, like, ever.
The point was to try and craft some sort of EO that they could vaguely construe or at least advertise as them attacking those damn liberal colleges for trying to keep perfectly normal right-wing speakers away because college liberals are silly children who hate freedom.
Yeah, it's a publicity stunt, I get it.
Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
In a different thread at a different time, AngelHedgie once wrote that Tolerance is not a moral philosophy, it is a peace treaty.
The idea being, don't let abusers of tolerance make you question your morality when they are the ones violating the peace treaty and they deserve sanctions. It's stuck with me as a really easy way to both remember this idea and to hold my ground when dealing with unpleasant people.
In some cases that would be escalation. You don't want that
Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
Yes I do.
Be safe then
Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
People also conveniently forget to quote the more inconvenient add on:
The follow up to that is:
Which to me really doesn’t describe our current situation. Unless we’re ready to start arming up and suppressing by force. I dunno, I’m not.
At any rate, the man is not gospel. And even he clarifies that suppression of intolerance is unwise except in extreme circumstances. It’s not a cudgel to suppress speech you don’t like.
"Orkses never lose a battle. If we win we win, if we die we die fightin so it don't count. If we runs for it we don't die neither, cos we can come back for annuver go, see!".
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
He’s essentially describing what we have come to term hate speech laws.
Even your own efforts to complete the full text from his notes fails to account for the full breadth, seemingly to make Popper out to be more sinister than the comic makes him out to be:
But sure if you want to argue that Karl Popper is, perhaps, a secret fascist whom we should regard with a weary eye, you can do that I suppose.
I don’t see how that’s relevant to the quote. It’s not my bible anyways, I just get annoyed how everyone uses the “don’t tolerate intolerance” part as a club while ignoring the “but really guys, unless it’s a super emergency suppressing speech is probably unwise” part.
Overall, it’s strange to see him used essentially as gospel on the subject.
Did you actually read that quote?
"Orkses never lose a battle. If we win we win, if we die we die fightin so it don't count. If we runs for it we don't die neither, cos we can come back for annuver go, see!".
We have the president of the United States, head alt-rightist, telling people not to listen to the "fake news media" constantly, and constantly calls for violence against his enemies. We've met the criteria for this.
"Orkses never lose a battle. If we win we win, if we die we die fightin so it don't count. If we runs for it we don't die neither, cos we can come back for annuver go, see!".
At what point can we stop pretending we haven't reached the point that Popper has described where we have a movement that is preaching intolerance, and that movement is inciting its membership to violence against non-whites globally?
Totally not! I don’t know the guy from Jesus and don’t really agree with the fullness of his thoughts. I appreciate you adding even more, the website I was on didn’t have that bit! Taken together he both seems to go further than the oft-quoted paradox but also preaches... caution? I don’t see it as quite the cure all people make it out to be.
Yes?
Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
We need anti-hate-speech laws, and its not going to be a slipperly slope into fascism because we're already on a slope towards fascism and anti-hate-speech laws are on the books in numerous other countries that haven't turned into fascist hellholes yet.
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
Yeah, there is no slippery slope as long as normal constitutional order is in place. The Supreme Court exists precisely to stop any such slippery slope.
"Orkses never lose a battle. If we win we win, if we die we die fightin so it don't count. If we runs for it we don't die neither, cos we can come back for annuver go, see!".