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Comment by woodruffw | Hacker News Reader

(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.

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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.

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