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[-] pixelscript@lemm.ee 14 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

This thread alone is showing me how divisive this question is for a lot of reasons. Just the meta-question of "what's the definition of 'free speech' in this context?" on its own makes it a shitshow to answer, let alone the rest of it.

It says in the name. 'Free', 'speech'. If I can say it, you can't silence it. Anything more restricted is not 'free'.

If that's what it means to you, then no, "hate speech", whatever it may be, is included by definition. There is no ambiguity. But that's a pretty inflexible answer that doesn't satisfy.

Well that's a stupid and useless definition of "free speech". Obviously some things that can be spoken aren't 'free speech', because they aren't constructive, they're not good-faith conversational, they are a form of harm, etc."

Sure. Under that definition, it's totally possible.

But congratulations, by restricting what 'free speech' is in any way whatsoever, you've invented an implicit judge who rules what is and is not free speech. (And, likely as well, rules what is and is not "hate speech".) That only kicks the can down the road to the question of, "Is this a fair judge?" And now we are back in the shitshow where we began, we just painted the walls a new color.

"Free speech" as Americans in particular are so worked up about is a nickname given to one of the amendments of their constitution, which is a clause about disallowing the government from punishing anyone for their speech. Any implication of rights relating to speech outside of this context is a gross misunderstanding.

If that's the definition you're going with, then yes, obviously it's possible, because that's where many of us are at right now and have been at for ages. That makes it a rather nothingburger of an answer because it dodges the implicit question of whether we should uphold "free speech" as a principle outside of this context, whatever that may mean.

The way I see it, the two answers on the extreme ends are cop-outs that don't actually help anyone, and any answer that exists in the middle just becomes politics. Is it possible to allow "free speech" and simultaneously stop "hate speech"? Yes, with adequate definitions of both. Will any solution that does so be satisfactory to a critical mass of people, randomly selected from all people? Haha no.

[-] futatorius@lemm.ee 7 points 6 days ago

you’ve invented an implicit judge who rules what is and is not free speech

Imagine that. Living in the real world, you are constantly faced with ethical choices.

[-] BluesF@lemmy.world 2 points 6 days ago

Even the American constitution contains exceptions. There's a whole wiki article on the subject!

[-] sith@lemmy.zip 3 points 5 days ago

Many good things have already been said, but I want to add one thing.

If you want an coherent framework that allows free speech but no hate speech, look at consequential ethics. As opposed to rule based ethics (free speech absolutionists).

I.e. we want to maximize the amount of common knowledge (flow of information or free speech) because it leads to the best results over time. If we want to maximize the flow of information, we cannot be absolutionists, because that puts us in a local minimum (failing to optimize properly). In other words, we need to restrict certain free speech to achieve maximum effective free speech.

[-] Feathercrown@lemmy.world 4 points 6 days ago

Others have brought up the inherent tension in the idea, but there are some potential avenues that try to avoid the pitfalls of the issue. For example, distributed moderation, where you subscribe to other users' moderation actions, allows anyone to post something while also allowing anyone to ignore them based on the moderation actions of those that they trust. If you combine this with global moderation of outright illegal content and mandatory tagging of NSFW/NSFL posts, which are generally considered to be necessary or at least understandable restrictions, then you have a somewhat workable system. You could argue that a platform that allows community moderators to curate their own communities also allows free speech and blocks hate speech, but that only works if the mods are always fair, which... yeah, no lol

[-] Tywele@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 5 days ago

You are describing Bluesky's moderation system.

[-] Custodian1623@lemmy.world 3 points 6 days ago

It depends on whether the user in question is bothered by seeing hateful things or by the existence of hateful speech. The latter tends to seek out and share hate speech (to complain about it) where the former would rather block it out completely. Both of these users may believe they want the same thing

[-] Feathercrown@lemmy.world 1 points 5 days ago

Ooh good insight!

[-] whaleross@lemmy.world 67 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Yes. There is no contradiction. Freedom or speech is the freedom to discuss or criticise as part of a discussion, in particular the freedom to criticize those in power without the fear of repercussion. Discuss sensitive topics to all your hearts desire. Hate speech does not intend to discuss anything. Hate speech is there to target, to threaten, to belittle, to dehumanise, to attack. Hate speech is violence.

Edit; As usual with this topic "free speech absolutists" emerge, often accompanied by elaborate use of language and a thesaurus. And as usual they are not really into the entire "free speech" as in "freedom of discussion", but rather "freedom of consequences" for themselves. Well boo hoo, ain't that a pearl clutching shame of a slippery slope to the strawman of "who are the real Nazis" when not supporting your freedom of unadulterated hatred to run free into the world.

[-] lemmyng@lemmy.ca 28 points 1 week ago

It's essentially a practical application of the paradox of tolerance. And like with that one, the paradox goes away when the offending party breaks the social contract.

[-] muntedcrocodile@lemm.ee 9 points 1 week ago

"If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them.

In this formulation, I do not imply, for instance, that we should always suppress the utterance of intolerant philosophies; as long as we can counter them by rational argument and keep them in check by public opinion, suppression would certainly be most unwise." - Karl Popper, The Open Society and Its Enemies (1945)

Everyone seems to forget the second paragraph of the quote.

Also a contract by definition cannot be valid and signed under duress thus the social contract is an invalid assertion. At the end of the day only thing that actually matters is Darwinian evaluation.

[-] Uruanna@lemmy.world 1 points 6 days ago

Everyone seems to forget the second paragraph of the quote.

No. The "as long as" does the necessary lifting there. Far-right rhetoric is a denial of reality and of any argument with a complete lack of shame or self-reflection, therefor this second part doesn't apply.

There was a time when we thought rational argumentation and logic were good enough to convince, but that has been dead for a few decades, and the US just paid that price.

signed under duress

~~I didn't ask to be born~~ the point is if you don't sign the contract you're not protected by it and you get no benefit, that's not duress. If you sign it but break it, you pay. No one is forcing you to sign, but if you don't, you can fuck off.

[-] muntedcrocodile@lemm.ee -1 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

I took "counter them" to imply countering their actions amd thus their indoctrination of new people (as to keep them as a minority).

Far-right rhetoric is a denial of reality and of any argument with a complete lack of shame or self-reflection

Name a single intolerant utterancr that does not fulfill this criterion. Ur welcome to critisize karl popers arguments if u wish. But if u do so u cannot use the same argument to support ur arguments and argue against the second half of that very argument. Classic case of cakeism.

The election in the us has very little to do with extremism or utterance of intoletant ideology. Trump got the same or very simmillar amount of votes as he did last time. Harris lost millions compared to biden. Most people dont read the news and thus are completly uneducated on politics. They hear a sound byte like "make america great again" go "fuck i cant afford bread id like to be great again when i could afford to eat" and vote based on that. The average person is an idiot and half of all people are dumber than that.

the point is if you don't sign the contract you're not protected by it and you get no benefit, that's not duress.

Ur forgetting the most important law of all. Its not illegal if u dont get caught. As long as u dont get caught u can go around breaking the social contract as much ad u want and still get the benifits and protections of it. Eg every billionare or corporation ever.

If you sign it but break it, you pay. No one is forcing you to sign, but if you don't, you can fuck off.

No. If u sign it and break it and get caught breaking it and cant pay ur way out then u pay. The social contract is a tool the government and elites use to derive legitimacy while also allowing them and their buddies to neglect holding up their end.

[-] hypna@lemmy.world 12 points 1 week ago

I would be careful with phrases like, "there is no contradiction." There is a comprehensible tension between free speech as the ability for anyone to say what they wish, and a prohibition on hate speech as a prohibition on saying specific things. Denying that risks damaging one's credibility because it can appear that we are merely refusing to acknowledge that tension.

I argue it's better to admit these tensions. And that's not an admission that the arguments for prohibition of hate speech are weak, but it is an admission that as real people in the real world, we can never have the comfort of a tension-free, contradiction-free theory for anything of significance.

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[-] masterspace@lemmy.ca 54 points 1 week ago

Free speech as in, the freedom to express valid political speech and criticize the current government? Sure. Easy.

Free speech as in, the ability to say whatever the hell you want, including threatening, harassing, or inciting hatred and genocide against people? No. No you cannot.

[-] m0darn@lemmy.ca 3 points 1 week ago

I think it may be possible if you understand a difference between the right to speak and the right to be heard.

Ie the right to say something doesn't create an obligation in others to hear it, nor to hear you in the future.

If I stand up on a milk crate in the middle of a city park to preach the glory of closed source operating systems, it doesn't infringe my right to free speech if someone posts a sign that says "Microsoft shill ahead" and offers earplugs at the park entrance. People can choose to believe the sign or not.

A social media platform could automate the signs and earplugs. By allowing users to set thresholds of the discourse acceptable to them on different topics, and the platform could evaluate (through data analysis or crowd sourced feedback) whether comments and/or commenters met that threshold.

I think this would largely stop people from experiencing hatespeech, (one they had their thresholds appropriately dialed in) and disincentivize hatespeech without actually infringing anybody's right to say whatever they want.

There would definitely be challenges though.

If a person wants to be protected from experiencing hatespeech they need to empower some-one/thing to censor media for them which is a risk.

Properly evaluating content for hatespeech/ otherwise objectionable speech is difficult. Upvotes and downvotes are an attempt to do this in a very coarse way. That/this system assumes that all users have a shared view of what content is worth seeing on a given topic and that all votes are equally credible. In a small community of people, with similar values, that aren't trying to manipulate the system, it's a reasonable approach. It doesn't scale that well.

[-] masterspace@lemmy.ca 5 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

I think you misunderstand the point of hate speech laws, it's not to not hear it, its because people rightly recognize that spreading ideas in itself can be dangerous given how flawed human beings are and how some ideas can incite people towards violence.

The idea that all ideas are harmless and spreading them to others has no effect is flat out divorced from reality.

Spreading the idea that others are less than human and deserve to die is an act of violence in itself, just a cowardly one, one step divorced from action. But one that should still be illegal in itself. It's the difference between ignoring Nazis and hoping they go away and going out and punching them in the teeth.

[-] futatorius@lemm.ee 1 points 6 days ago

Yeah, only one of those tactics works.

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[-] andlewis@lemmy.world 32 points 1 week ago
[-] swordgeek@lemmy.ca 16 points 1 week ago

Definitely read the article, but TL;DR It's acceptable (and necessary) to shut down Nazis.

[-] original_reader@lemm.ee 21 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Freedom is always relative. No one has absolute freedom. No matter how much I want to go without sleep, I can't do that. No matter how much I don't like gravity, it limits me (or liberates me, depending on my view). I have the freedom to jump off a highrise, but will that freedom actually do me good? Absolute freedom is not necessarily a good thing as it can harm myself and others.

Therefore free speech doesn't mean I can say whatever I want. It means that I have the right to express my opinions publicly. But there must be restrictions to balance the right to free speech with the need to protect individuals and society from harm (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_speech).

Edit: formatting

[-] twistypencil@lemmy.world 13 points 1 week ago

Yes, free speech doesn't mean necessarily free speech absolutism

[-] ChonkyOwlbear@lemmy.world 10 points 1 week ago

I like to remind *free speech absolutists" that child porn is technically a type of speech.

[-] deranger@sh.itjust.works 3 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

It’s inherently exploitative due to the age difference. Free speech doesn’t cover violating someone else’s rights like that.

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[-] EmilyIsTrans@lemmy.blahaj.zone 10 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Lots of places already exclude hate speech from free speech, for an example I am familiar with (because I live there), Australia has a right to freedom of expression and opinion but does not protect speech that incites discrimination, among other things. As far as I'm concerned that is still a right to free speech, not the least because hate speech inherently limits the voice of its victims.

[-] schnurrito@discuss.tchncs.de 10 points 1 week ago
[-] That_Devil_Girl@lemmy.ml 8 points 1 week ago

No, because free speech includes all speech. Even the speech we disagree with.

We don't technically have free speech in the US either. You can't make death threats or shout "Fire!" in a crowded movie theater.

[-] richieadler@lemmy.myserv.one 6 points 1 week ago

The free speech absolutism is useless in practice.

[-] MentalEdge@sopuli.xyz 6 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Thats because once discussion on something concludes, you generally make it law.

"Murder is bad" is very much agreed on to be a good thing. To me it is only logical for the next step to be "verbally encouraging or excusing murder is bad", which might not need to be law, but it should at least not be state backed.

There is a difference between being allowed to say whatever you think, and having the state guarantee that whatever you have to say is actually heard.

Not being heard or listened to, is not a violation of free speech. Being removed or "silenced" online or even physically in public, is not a violation of your free speech.

Free speech is to be free to say whatever you like, but it does not protect you from what other citizens do in response.

If you insult someone, and they punch you in the face in response, your free speech was not violated.

"Hate speech" is a category of "opinion" that is obviously harmful that anyone thinking straight should immediately dismiss it. The problems have started because thanks to the internet, those "opinions" can now reach all the people who aren't thinking straight.

For those who do identify hate speech easily, to protect those who don't, by at least not propagating it (social media, government) is the bare minimum of what they can do.

Taking away the megaphone if someone is using it to encourage murder is not a violation of free speech. And it's necessary.

With a megaphone, you don't need to be right. You just need to be heard by enough people that the tiny percentage that will believe whatever you say, is a large enough group to be dangerous.

[-] pjwestin@lemmy.world 7 points 1 week ago

It depends on how much of an absolutist you want to be. No government allows absolute freedom of speech. Libel, slander, and incitement of violence are all forms of speech that are illegal in basically every country. If your platform refuses to remove these forms of speech, you would be protecting what is generally not considered to be free speech, and it's possible you could even be held legally liable for allowing that kind of speech to spread on your platform.

If you decide not to be a free speech absolutist, and instead define free speech as legal speech, then things get complicated. In the U.S., the Supreme Court has held multiple times that hate speech is protected under the First Amendment, so censoring hate speech would mean your platform wasn't allowing all forms of, "free speech." However, the U.S. has much broader protections on speech than most Western countries, and hate speech is illegal in much of Europe.

So, TL:DR; free speech is a sliding scale, and many countries wouldn't consider hate speech to be protected form of speech. By those standards, you could have a platform that censors hate speech but still maintains what is considered free speech. However, by other countries' standards, you would be censoring legal speech.

[-] howrar@lemmy.ca 5 points 1 week ago

Depends on what you mean by "free speech". If you mean absolute free speech in the sense that all voices are present and heard, then no, because it blocks out the hateful voices. But you can't have that while allowing for hate speech either because hate speech silences the voices of its target. So no such thing can exist. If you want a platform with "free speech", you need to decide who gets the freedom and how much of it. There has to be a limit somewhere, whether it's explicitly set or not.

[-] awesomesauce309@midwest.social 5 points 1 week ago

First you need to define free speech.

Let’s use Call of duty as an example. People love to think of MW2 lobbies as free speech. Male Gamers used their “free speech” to make any women feel unwelcome the minute they spoke. White Gamers listening for any signs of non-whiteness to ridicule. Was this free speech? Or just a group imposing its views on everyone who stood out on the platform? Activision just wants to sell as many copies as possible. So those Gamers get the boot, now those women and minorities feel the freedom to play and speak again.

If the speech is used as a battering ram to relentlessly berate, shame, silence, and enforce groupthink, then there is a chilling effect on the more truly free speech of others.

Using this logic the only way to have a truly free speech platform is to keep these mobs in check, and remove or limit their hate speech.

[-] remon@ani.social 5 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

In theory.

In practice it would be very hard and you would require very rigorous definitions of what constitutes hate speech that would have to carefully examined on a case to case basis. So basically you're building a small legal system.

That's impossible to do with volunteer moderators working for free.

[-] thisguy1092@lemmy.world 3 points 1 week ago
[-] atro_city@fedia.io 3 points 1 week ago

No. Absolute free speech means allowing people say whatever they like and that means anything. You can spam somebody with messages telling them to kill themselves. You can put a loudspeaker in front of somebody's house and play a message on loop telling them to kill themselves. You can openly call for somebody to kill another person and not get in trouble for enticing a murder. You can shout down anybody you like and tell them to shut up or threaten them, all you have to do is be louder and look like you have the means to kill them in order to intimidate. And that will all be fine because if someone tries to stop you from expressing your opinion, they will be infringing on your right to absolute free speech.

It does however create a paradox: if someone uses their free speech to infringe on somebody else's free speech, what can be done? You can't tell the person infringing to stop because that would infringe on their free speech. After all, they have a right to absolute free speech, don't they? So, if you say "your right to free speech ends where the right of somebody else's begins" then it's not absolute anymore.

It also opens a can of worms as to what counts as expressing free speech and what counts as suppressing it. Does blocking somebody on a platform infringe on their right? Does muting? If the rule is "right to speak, but no right to be heard", what counts as speech? Does typing and hitting send count as free speech? Well, I could give you an app with a textbox and a send button, disconnect you from the internet, and you could write everything you want, hit send and it never leaves your computer but you did express yourself, didn't you? Or maybe the sounds coming out of your mouth count as speech / expression ? Well, I could gag you, you can make sounds and that's speech, right?

So no. I don't believe absolute free speech can exist.

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this post was submitted on 27 Nov 2024
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