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Comment by throwawaysea | Hacker News Reader

Looking at all the downvotes in this discussion is telling. There are many who are so radicalized on the left at this point, that they literally fear and dislike the open exchange of ideas. Free societies are durable over the long term when they protect these rights at all times, for all people, for all ideologies. As a rule of thumb, if the speech in question is not advocating for direct physical violence, it should be permitted.

It is especially important to understand this today, when large privately-owned platforms carry so much discourse across society, since censorship and deplatforming in those spaces has the same impact as governmental censorship, for most intents and purposes.

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(Rant)

Yeah, no. I don’t “fear and dislike the open exchange of ideas.” I’m tired of the (primarily online!) assumption that all opinions are equally worthy of my time, and I’m especially tired of being accused of being anti-free-speech for daring to decide who gets to occupy my relatively limited attention.

Whether free societies are durable is immaterial. They are good because they embody principles of agency and autonomy for all involved. Those principles entail both my right to ignore bad opinions, and my moral obligation to not lend credence to views that would undermine the system itself.

Occupy your attention? Why can’t you just ignore opinions you disagree with, or offer a different one? It’s not that hard to scroll past something you disagree with or to not click that link or not watch that video. People do this all the time.

I feel the motivation to censor or deplatform is not about improving one’s own personal experience, but really about limiting what others can access and waging a dirty war of competing ideas. Otherwise why do people push to deplatform channels on YouTube that they can simply block?

It seems imminently unwise to claim that what you or some subset of society deem acceptable at this moment in the current set of circumstances should establish limits on what ideas can enter societal discourse. What if we have it wrong? Should a currently popular idea never be challenged? It’s a massive risk to take such a view because sentiment around right/wrong/acceptable is so variable over time.

>It’s not that hard to scroll past something you disagree with or to not click that link or not watch that video.

Tell me more about how I should "just ignore" direct violent threats against me because of who I am and what I look like. You're speaking from the ultimate pedestal of privilege, probably because society already protects and values people who look and act like you.

I understand this is a sensitive topic for you.

The root comment (by your comment's parent commenter) did say that "advocating for direct physical violence" should be the exception to free speech.

And more generally, incitement to crime/violence is generally accepted as the exception to the rule by people who advocate for free speech.

That said, I'm sympathetic to the notion that some people can perceive even speech that isn't outright threatening violence as an implied threat, so I understand that it's a complex issue.

I do think the parent commenter was inflammatory, so please don't think I'm defending everything they said.

You know full well that deplatforming and censorship are not applied ONLY when direct violence is part of the speech in question. Moreover, I said speech restrictions should be limited to a very narrow scope, and I explicitly offered direct physical violence as an example of reasonably disallowed speech.

The problem is that the definitions used to censor speech often experience 'scope creep' and start to encompass more and more, up to the limits of whatever the circumstances and pressures of the time allow. Usually that means the limitations are set by whomever is able to gather more political power at that moment. And by 'political power' I mean not just explicit political power from public positions, but also power encompassed in actions like mass action on Twitter. These dynamics are usually influenced by a small vocal minority and not agreed to by everyone, but the resulting actions still impact everyone. Hence it is not a great way to manage the exchange of ideas.

PS: you don't know me, so I am not sure what standing you have to talk about my privilege or why it is relevant.

You can make your points without being so inflammatory and combative. Clearly that person has some fears or has had some troubling experiences, and it's not helpful or kind to be provocative.

I too support free speech and worry about the current enthusiasm for stifling it. But I don't like how many people use it to justify indecency and cruelty in their speech. If nothing else, it gives ammunition to those who seek to restrict speech.

Why do you feel I am the one being combative? The commenter you are referring to said I was speaking from “the ultimate pedestal of privilege”, which seems explicitly combative.

Am I not allowed to push back on that? Or to push back on the rhetorical tactic of devaluing free speech by highlighting speech involving direct violence (the most egregious example potentially), especially when I accounted for it?

In both my comments (my original reply to that person and my later one to you) I defended/supported the substance of your point of view, while seeking to de-escalate the conflict.

I don't think the accusations/presumptions they made about you were fair or reasonably expressed, but again, I chose my words in an effort to de-escalate things. The heated, ideological nature of the discussion began with your root comment.

The HN guidelines explicitly ask that "Comments should get more civil and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive", and this discussion shows just why that's so important.

I personally care a lot about free speech and want it to be something we can have constructive discussions about on HN. They can't happen when people throw ideologically-charged bombs around.

Clearly that person has some fears or has had some troubling experiences, and it's not helpful or kind to be provocative.

And how do you know throawaysea isn't speaking from the same or similar position? minikites made an unfair assumption about their character and presumably their life status, I'd say that's probably more inflammatory and infinitely less helpful to this discussion than making direct, if dissenting statements about the validity or physical violence in response to speech, or vice versa-as topics being presently discussed in the thread, and it is CERTAINLY not helpful or kind to make speculative suggestions about someone's personal physical appearance which has no place in on this message board.

I understand and appreciate that passion can emerge in this discussion, and the sub-thread we're having between us right now, but I don't find it any more helpful to respond the way minikites did to throwawaysea if we're going to warn people about helpful, kind, or conversely provocative responses.

Your assumption that this is only a problem on the left is completely baseless. The right likes to use the freedom of speech argument when they feel it works against them, but they also support scare tactics to suppress the speech (and votes) of minority groups often with the support or tacit acceptance of the government.

It doesn't appear that the right even understands freedom of speech. Freedom of speech does not mean that private organizations cannot censor you, it means that the government cannot censor you. Further, freedom of speech does not mean freedom to espouse hateful views, advocate physical violence (as you said), or cause false panic (whether you yell fire in an airport or yell conspiracy theories on the radio). If you believe that we should have open platforms on the Internet free from the censorship of Internet giants, then that is a different issue than freedom of speech.

It's not that the left dislikes freedom of speech, it's that the right has twisted the meaning and use of freedom of speech to promote hate, conspiracy, and fear. I recommend you check out the Paradox of Tolerance, and idea put forth by philosopher Karl Popper.

It's not that the left dislikes freedom of speech, it's that the right has twisted the meaning and use of freedom of speech to promote hate, conspiracy, and fear.

Seems to me that in the US there's an incredible unwillingness to look this particular horse in the mouth because everytime I see this debate online it's always "it's not us, it's THEM, they're the ones twisting words and ruining things, I'm not the boogeyman, it's them".

Maybe not everytime but with enough frequency that it does become curious.

But maybe that's just politics applied by humans equipped with human nature.

I don't think it is a problem only on the left. However, I've seen it more consistently on the left in recent times in the US. That's the only reason I mentioned it. I'm happy to hear and learn about counter examples too though.

I do not agree with the definition of 'freedom of speech' you are using, and I don't think most would. Why would it be defined only in terms of the government? It is a general concept that is useful at all times, since it is about the open exchange of ideas. An open exchange of ideas is useful in governance, at work, among friends, etc. And yes, it is useful when discussing private organizations, particularly when there they harbor immense control and face little competition to create choice (as is the case with some platforms like Twitter or with payment processors).

And as I mentioned elsewhere, Karl Popper was very clear about preferring not to suppress speech but to use rational arguments against differing opinions. In fact, using freedom of speech to suppress freedom of speech was the main problem he was talking about in the context of the paradox.

Why would it be defined only in terms of the government?

"Freedom of speech only applies to the government" exists as an argument that is technically true if one were to go to court over the matter, so it is often used as a philosophical escape hatch to avoid having the tougher conversation on the larger implications of what 'freedom of speech' practically means, why the framers of the Constitution bothered with it in the first place-I would wager because having that discussion would reveal some ugly truths about someone who responds to a discussion like this by saying "freedom of speech only applies to the government" and what their true goals and intentions are in the face of unpleasant or disturbing information and opinions.

The irony of such philosophical laziness isn't lost on me, but surely no one would say "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" are only ideals that can be granted by the government-yet there they are, in one of America's operating manuals. Clear as day.

The argument falls apart at the surface, and if I'm being honest, sometimes I wonder if the people who like to deploy that tactic know this.

American political discussion, in observation, is full of carefully picked cherries it seems like.

>Free societies are durable over the long term when they protect these rights at all times, for all people, for all ideologies.

That's not how violent ideologies operate. Violent ideologies eventually eliminate the rights of the vulnerable: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance

>The paradox of tolerance is a paradox that states that if a society is tolerant without limit, its ability to be tolerant is eventually seized or destroyed by the intolerant.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance

I think almost everyone here is familiar with the paradox of tolerance as a general concept, but it is almost misunderstood or misused.

To quote your own Wikipedia link, here's what Karl Popper (who coined this phrase) believed:

> "Popper asserted that to allow freedom of speech to those who would use it to eliminate the very principle upon which they rely is paradoxical."

And yet here we are, with people today using freedom of speech to suppress freedom of speech (e.g. pressuring companies to deplatform someone) and somehow thinking they are defending tolerance.

Also if you actually read more about Popper said, you'll find this bit:

> 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.

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