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Comment by woodruffw | Hacker News Reader

I think a common failure (intentional or not) in discussing free speech is isolating free speech absolutism from the sort of free speech that we'd be happy to accept in a liberal, open society.

Speaking practically and from the absolutist perspective, there should be no legal penalty for inciting others to violence. However, I think that (nearly) all of us recognize the importance of motive in cases -- we rightfully recognize both the inciter and the mob and assign blame commensurately. Most of us, I think, would not want to live in a society where inciting panic or violence is at least morally neutral. If that's the case and we think that the laws should reflect such a judgement, then it follows that open societies must (counterintuitively) place restrictions on free speech.[1]

Geoff makes good points, and he uses good sources to advance those points. But we should not think that Paine or Mill would be comfortable with the absolutist rhetoric that they get applied popularly to today.

[1]: Karl Popper called this the "Paradox of Tolerance."

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> Karl Popper called this the "Paradox of Tolerance."

Popper was talking about a last resort, not something which should be applied as a blanket policy of suppression of "unacceptable" viewpoints.

This gross misreading of Popper's thoughts on free speech was popularized by a cartoon which went flying around social media after Charlottesville. But here's what he actually said on the subject:

> 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 unwise.

I was familiar with Popper well before Charlottesville, and that footnote only refers to the same paradox, not the same argument.

In any case, Sarte seems more applicable to our current rash of "ironic" intolerance:

> Never believe that anti-Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The anti-Semites have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert. If you press them too closely, they will abruptly fall silent, loftily indicating by some phrase that the time for argument is past.

You misunderstand me. I thought it was clear that I was talking about ideas, not threats or inciting mobs. You'll have a hard time finding any self-described free speech absolutist who thinks those should be permitted.

Is it always clear when it’s one or the other? If I say “western society is decadent and as such should be overthrown” is that an idea or an incitement to violence?

It's usually pretty clear, and if it's not then it's best to err on the side of free speech. Declaring one's desire to overthrow western society is not a threat or an incitement to violence. Here's an example of what counts as free speech in the US: "If they ever make me carry a rifle the first man I want to get in my sights is L. B. J."[1] It has to be a true threat. Likewise, inciting a mob only applies to actual mobs on the verge of violence.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Threatening_the_President_of_t...

  It's usually pretty clear

Is it?

Seems to me if I wanted to preach hate I'd wrap it in allusions, hypotheticals and you-know-what-I-mean

Maybe letting that stuff through is the cost of free speech?

He's not saying "it's clear when someone is preaching hate" (it is certainly often couched in oblique language to avoid attracting ire and opposition), he's saying, "it's pretty clear when someone is making a threat or incitement to imminent, actual violence."

Neither "The Jews will not replace us" nor "euthanize the rentiers" constitutes an imminent threat of violence.

How imminent and serious does it need to be for us to ban it?

I would say the second one does.

> You misunderstand me. I thought it was clear that I was talking about ideas, not threats or inciting mobs.

And who decides what's an "idea" and what's "threats or inciting mobs"?

Would you be happy for the British government to say that of course the colonists have the right to free speech, but many of them are advocating threats and inciting mobs, which isn't allowed? Or for the king of Thailand to say the same thing about those who insult the king? Or for the Spanish government to say the same thing about Catalonian politicians? Or for Trump to say this about the women's march?

What is a threat or a mob? Is a group of Nazis in Nazi uniforms marching down the street saying Nazi things somehow not a threat or a mob? The ACLU believes they have a right to free speech!

Oh the other hand what about, Milo pushing his followers to send Leslie Jones racist imagery and slurs on Twitter? Is that an idea, or inciting a mob?

Yup, exactly. To be clear about my position, I believe that "free speech" is an impractical ideal, and we as a society need to be clear about what sorts of speech we value and what we don't, and if we don't do that, we're left with one of two bad options: either we have to err so hard on the side of free speech that we can't ban threats or incitement to violence or anything at all, or we let the government define "threats" in a way that is prone to government abuse just like everything else is.

As the OP says, if you ban speech you are marking it as permanently unthinkable.

In the case of, say, social media platforms banning violent threats against their other users, is that a bad thing?

That's asserted by the OP, but I don't think that claim is supported by the OP or by his sources.

I argue that banning speech (as a speech act) and banning ideas are different things. To pick a sort of pedantic counterexample, banning me from yelling a racial slur at you in public more than once isn't making anything unthinkable. I can yell it once, other people can yell it at you, I can yell it at others, people can record the yell on YouTube, etc.

So, I agree with OP's argument that we should not ban ideas, and I do agree that speech is necessary to communicate ideas (of course), but I think that banning some speech acts can be entirely defensible.

(Also, remember that every functioning advanced society bans several forms of speech already - a good example is that I am banned from using a trademark without authorization from the trademark holder, or from reproducing copyrighted material, or from making defamatory claims.)

There does need to be some sort of sane standard for determining whether something counts as a threat/incitement if they're not going to be permitted.

Say I'm very popular on twitter, and say I don't like somebody for whatever reason. If there's a reasonable expectation that this will result in them being mobbed by my less personable followers, does that count as incitement?

Or at what point does aggressive banter in good faith become an actual threat in [favorite multiplayer video game]?

I think we're not even at that point, yet. On Twitter, there are lots of people who receive violent threats, and they're told by Twitter that those are not a violation of the ToS.

I understood you, but I think that you conflated freedom of conscience with freedom of speech. Freedom of conscience seems pretty uncontroversial, and it's what Paine is talking about in the quote you gave (on my interpretation).

I think everybody agrees that freedom of conscience is both good and necessary in an open society. However, it's incorrect to think that absolute freedom of speech necessarily follows.

> You'll have a hard time finding any self-described free speech absolutist who thinks those should be permitted.

I've debated people who believe this. You and I don't have to agree with them, but they exist.

How can anyone be said to have freedom of conscience when the range of thought they may encounter is circumscribed by censors?

First, the cases I've listed aren't ambitious ones -- there are no censors, only public courts looking at a case after the fact to determine whether someone's speech was indeed inciteful.

Second, how can anybody discover facts about the world if they haven't been discovered yet? Truth and thought are not contingent upon prior art; at best, they just speed it up a bit.

> I understood you

I'm sorry but you don't. (Also, don't I get to decide that, not you?)

> Freedom of conscience seems pretty uncontroversial, and it's what Paine is talking about in the quote you gave (on my interpretation).

Paine and Mill weren't just talking about freedom of conscience or thought. Paine thought it crucial to hear others' ideas so that he could avoid being wrong. That requires the ideas be expressed. Likewise with Mill. Chapter 2 of On Liberty is titled "Of the Liberty of Thought and Discussion"[1]. Throughout the text, Mill defends expression as well as thought, and condemns the silencing of any expression of opinion:

> But I deny the right of the people to exercise such coercion, either by themselves or by their government. The power itself is illegitimate. The best government has no more title to it than the worst. It is as noxious, or more noxious, when exerted in accordance with public opinion, than when in opposition to it.

1. https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/On_Liberty/Chapter_2

> I'm sorry but you don't. (Also, don't I get to decide that, not you?)

Yes, you do. Sorry if that came off as blunt - I only think that I understood you.

You're right that Mill considers both thought and speech in On Liberty, which is why I said Paine and not Mill.

That being said, Mill should be taken holistically -- he's a Utilitarian[1], and is firmly committed to his version of the principle of utility (the "Greatest Happiness Principle"). Reading a practical prescription of free speech as a moral (or even lesser, legal) prescription would lead to a contradiction in any circumstance where the GHP says that restricting speech would promote happiness (e.g., where incitement leads to murder).

[1]: Specifically, on my interpretation, he's an act utilitarian. I've seen him read as an rule utilitarian (and parts 4 and on of his Utilitarianism can support that reading), but his first formulation of the GHP is pretty unambiguous:

> [...] actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness [...]

I am going to discuss the concept of "free speech", not government regulation, because I don't think anyone at Charlottesville was arrested for just marching.

The issue I have with the whole rational argument thing is that having to argue constantly and entertain every other opposing view requires me to expend time and energy to understanding viewpoints I disagree with. Why is the onus on me to understand others instead of them having to convince me?

This is a debating tactic: you put the other chap on defense, forcing them to respond, which puts them in a weaker position. White supremacists, racists, climate deniers, and the like use this tactic online all the time, they pose dumb questions and make challenges, citing obscure sources that take time to prove false, all the while, they get what they want: they put you on defense taking time to defend the consensus while they have to demonstrate nothing in the meantime. These arguments get nowhere, because the people who posed them never were genuine in the first place. The intent was always to spread FUD and convince the uninformed that there's enough doubt to at least entertain the idea, and by the time you post your multi-paragraph reply (like I am here), most of the crowds' eyes have glazed over and the trolls already accomplished what they set out for.

It gets to a point where these tactics are so tired that internet communities silence these voices wholesale, like here on HN, we don't rehash emacs vs vi or things like that over and over again and admins generally flag political threads. I know dang says they do it to keep the community from turning toxic, but the reason it gets toxic is because ideologues aren't really interested in an honest conversation, toxicity is their goal as I alluded to above. On a more personal level, you learn to not really entertain people when they bring up the Bell Curve or how "global cooling became global warming", and that isn't being close minded, that is not choosing not to feed the trolls.

> Freedom of conscience seems pretty uncontroversial, and it's what Paine is talking about in the quote you gave (on my interpretation).

I don't see how you can limit that quote to freedom of conscience. He is clearly talking about the spread of opinions and debate on them i.e. speech.

> I think everybody agrees that freedom of conscience is both good and necessary in an open society.

No, everybody doesn't This is why we have a supreme court cases about forcing businesses to make wedding cakes for gay marriage. We have pretty uncontroversial laws preventing people who have racist believes from discriminating based on those beliefs.

Freedom of Conscience and Speech both need limitations. This article isn't really about that at all anyway. This article is about talking about the reasons why we should value Free Speech.

I think you'll find a lot of people who will disagree what constitutes "threats or inciting mobs".

Though tangential to the points in the article, there's also a common failure to distinguish between freedom from infringement of speech by the government, and freedom from infringement by private parties. The former is guaranteed by the federal government; the latter is not (though some states provide limited protections [1]).

Not to mention failure to distinguish exercise of free speech (permitted) from discrimination against protected classes (prohibited). (The old "I'm exercising my right to free speech by refusing to provide gays/blacks/etc. services" argument.) "My rights end where your rights begin" is an important pillar of modern society that really precludes any sort of absolutism about free speech.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Amendment_to_the_United_...

Both government and private parties can pose separate risks to free speech, but the value of freedom of speech in a society does not change based on where those risks are coming from.

The point your are making is against the strawman argument that the first amendment should prohibit private companies editorial decisions. I haven't seen anyone making that claim.

When the bill of rights was drafted, it was inconceivable that any company would have the level of control over speech that companies have today.

I can't follow whether you're arguing for or against interpreting the first amendment as prohibiting restriction of speech by private entities. (Your 2nd paragraph seems against, but your 3rd paragraph seems for.)

Regardless, I'm not arguing either, I'm stating facts backed by case law as outlined in the linked Wikipedia article to support the thesis that the phrase "free speech" is used to mean many different things, often to deliberately confound discussion on the topic. If supporters of "free speech" clarified what exactly what flavor of "free speech" they are talking about (1st amendment prohibition of federal restrictions; imagined prohibition of private restrictions; ability to override rights of protected classes) I suspect we'd have fewer, and more productive, discussions.

Unfortunately such precision of language is hard to come by in this brave new world of emotion-driven discource and deliberately confounded communication.

> I can't follow whether you're arguing for or against interpreting the first amendment as prohibiting restriction of speech by private entities.

That might be because I thought it was obvious that the second amendment doesn't prohibit private entities from restricting speech. In fact, it is much more likely to prevent Congress from passing any law to limit the abilities of private entities to limit speech (since those editorial decisions count as speech.)

> If supporters of "free speech" clarified what exactly what flavor of "free speech" they are talking about (1st amendment prohibition of federal restrictions;

My point is that there is no "flavor" of free speech only "flavors" of censorship. The importance of freedom of speech and its value to society does not change based on which "flavors" of censorship are being used.

Ultimately, our misunderstandings might be based on you trying to refute an argument which does not occur in the article and of which you provide no concrete examples.

But there are flavors of free speech. I, for one, don't believe that violent threats fall under free speech. I don't believe that makes me against free speech.

Violent threats are already illegal and I haven't seen anyone here arguing to make them legal. What is your point?

I see plenty of people saying that all speech should be legal, and that sites like Twitter shouldn't police any speech. That would include violent threats.

> I see plenty of people saying that all speech should be legal

So why don't you go argue with them on a platform where they exist? I haven't see anyone making that claim here or in the article. Again, what is you point?

> sites like Twitter shouldn't police any speech. That would include violent threats

Generally we leave enforcement of the laws to law enforcement officials. Twitter should give out the information needed to prosecute that illegal speech and send those people to jail, not be in the business of determining what speech is illegal in a way where all of the protections of our legal system are lost.

I see plenty of people making that argument, so I don't think you could really call it a strawman.

I've seen nobody here making that argument, and since it is presented as 'common' but with no concrete examples I am plenty happy calling it a strawman argument.

Here? No. But online? Yes.

You are operating/arguing from the neutral reality perspective-- that is to say, that "we as a society" exists as a concrete entity that can pass laws. But that's not the case. We are not the government, far from it. The government is a collection of people who have power over us.

Many of them are corrupt and will do evil-- just imagine the worse member of the political party you disagree with as a dictator.

Every time you want to give government power to the government, imagine that guy as a dictator wielding that power.

Any limitations, as we have seen, on human rights become the camel nose under the tent, and then you eventually end up with government violating the right wholesale. (eg: secret courts and secret rulings, National Security Letters an the like, illegal surveillance and wiretapping.)

While inciting a mob to violence can be considered immoral, it is the violence that is the crime... the action.... not the opinion.

"You are operating/arguing from the neutral reality perspective-- that is to say, that "we as a society" exists as a concrete entity that can pass laws. But that's not the case. We are not the government, far from it. The government is a collection of people who have power over us."

That we, the people, choose (a least in non-dictatorship countries).

"While inciting a mob to violence can be considered immoral, it is the violence that is the crime... the action.... not the opinion."

Taken to extremes, that means that hiring a hit man, or ordering someone in your cult to kill someone isn't responsible. And yet, as a society, we've said otherwise.

This argument is patently false. As soon as you give them the power to censor speech, we stop choosing the government - They choose themselves, by deciding what we can and cannot say, who we can and cannot hear from, who gets to even announce their candidacy. See https://youtu.be/c1HdCIW2Xtk - We're not China, but they're not even using their official power to censor, just misusing their official power to look the other way while their unofficial power censors. This is why we need adversarial politics - And why even trolls must be protected speech, because they serve as a canary in the coal mine about what you're not allowed to say.

> Any limitations, as we have seen, on human rights become the camel nose under the tent, and then you eventually end up with government violating the right wholesale. (eg: secret courts and secret rulings, National Security Letters an the like, illegal surveillance and wiretapping.)

Free speech in Canada does not allow for hate speech or inciting violence, and we're at least no worse than the USA for whatever violations of the right.

In Canada it is illegal to refer to somebody by anything other than their preferred gender...

The camel's nose is in the tent in your country. Good luck getting rid of it. Hate speech laws are blasphemy laws wearing a secular skirt. They will be expanded to persecute political minorities.

http://www.torontosun.com/2017/09/20/m-103-weaponizes-what-a...

https://www.catholicregister.org/item/26111-m-103-could-brin...

Thanks to the internet I’m sure you still get plenty of exposure to America’s actually free speech.

You're saying that like being bombarded with hate speech is a good thing.

> While inciting a mob to violence can be considered immoral, it is the violence that is the crime... the action.... not the opinion.

Instead of a mob, what if I use speech to sic a dangerous dog on someone?

The incitement is no different – the dog isn't thinking rationally, nor is anyone in the mob ("mob mentality"). In both cases the inciter is directing the action.

Of course, you can't legally try a dog… but you can't practically try a mob.

Same with war crimes. Should generals not be held accountable for genocides under their orders, if they never personally murdered any civilians? After all, they were just saying words.

> The government is a collection of people who have power over us.

Where I live, they have power over me because the people put them there. We can (and absolutely should) talk about corruption and the erosion of popular rule, but I don't think we should succumb to such a fatalist view.

> While inciting a mob to violence can be considered immoral, it is the violence that is the crime... the action.... not the opinion.

Read my argument again. If inciting a mob to violence is immoral and we accept that the law should reflect that judgement, then it follows that incitement itself should be a crime (and, in fact, is a crime).

>Many of them are corrupt and will do evil-- just imagine the worse member of the political party you disagree with as a dictator.

I personally see very little utility in this thought experiment because this isn't reality. There is a reason why we have a government in the first place, and we risk loss to liberty and freedom by making the government too weak. It's a balancing act, and imagining the worst case should not be an argument for what reality requires.

For example, imagine the government was full of rational dictators who had my best interests in mind. Should I give them absolute power? That too is unrealistic, so why make arguments based on it.

Popper is indeed the best articulation of the caveat of the OP. We must be intolerant of intolerance. And intolerance is defined as ideas that attack others based on inalienable aspects (skin color, lineage and the like) or intrinsic to our understanding of self determination that does not impinge on the rights of others (religion, beliefs, sexual orientation and the like).

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