Hacker News Reader

Comment by nostromo | Hacker News Reader

The First Amendment is not the same thing as Freedom of Speech. Freedom of Speech is an ideal from Ancient Greece and obviously predates the US Constitution. It’s also much broader in scope.

So, yes, people can have their freedom of speech infringed by a private company or employer, even if it’s not protected by the First Amendment.

View on HN

Well, sort of. The ancient Greeks actually had two concepts, and people confuse them all the time. [1] But people harkening back to the ancient Greek tradition of isegoria are a very small percentage of the "BUT MUH FREEDOMZ" outcry. What they want is not freedom of speech, but freedom from the consequences of their speech. And often they want it in ways that include suppressing other people's rights, like freedom of speech and freedom of association.

[1] https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/12/two-con...

Obviously people want freedom from consequences of their speech. That's what freedom of speech means. What kind of "freedom of speech" would it be if you were instantly killed upon uttering any criticism of the great leader? Obviously you wouldn't have freedom of speech in that situation because the consequences would be so dire nobody would speak up.

Who, exactly, in this case is trying to suppress other people's freedom of speech, or freedom of association? Is PragerU trying to get liberal channels shut down? I don't believe they are; this is a non-sequiteur used try and cast victims of oppression as oppressors themselves.

> Who, exactly, in this case is trying to suppress other people's freedom of speech, or freedom of association?

The case is trying to force YouTube to associate with PraegerU.

It doesn't take a lot of consideration to conclude that total freedom from consequences of speech is akin to all parties pretending that the offending speech was simply never said, which defeats the purpose of speech itself in the first place. So we can conclude that people want freedom from specific consequences of speech, not all consequences.

Once that distinction is made, one can argue about which consequences one should be free of. US law, for example, strictly ties the government's right to censor (i.e. being killed upon uttering any criticism of great leader is out-of-bounds) but the also-present freedom of the press and freedom of association implies private individuals' rights to refrain from sharing information or associating with various entities, and there is a, perhaps questionable, expedient that extends those rights from individuals to corporations in the US (being fired upon uttering public criticism of dear CEO is, except for specific carve-outs mostly paid for in blood during union strikes, acceptable; a corporation is not the government and has no obligation to continue to serve an employee at odds with the corporation and what it stands for, while governments have no such luxury and must serve even their "malcontents").

The right YouTube has here is freedom of association. PragerU, in asking a court to continue to host them, is saying YouTube shouldn't have that right with respect to them.

More generally, the "BUT MAH FREEEEDOMZ" argument comes up in response to criticism or social consequences like shunning. E.g., Person A turns out to be a pseudonym-using prominent white supremacist. When revealed, they receive a heap of public criticism and are fired, because their boss does not want to employ somebody who thinks other employees should be killed. Some will claim that people should not say unkind things to/about Person A, and that Person A should be able to keep their job. But that impinges on the free speech of the critics, and the right to freedom of association of the employer.

This is the standard response when people find out they are wrong.

It is somewhat ironic too, because the actual violation of freedom of speech occurs when a person or company is forced, by the government, to publish someone else’s content that they may not agree with.

If you write a letter to the New York Times and they don’t publish it that’s not a violation of freedom of speech. If the government forces them to, it is.

Ideals from ancient Greece also included how to treat one's slaves and how to tell whether a person was naturally suited for the life of slavery or freedom, so it's important to put more consideration into the nuances of the virtue of such ideals than just "The Greek philosophers were into it."

Margaret Sanger unapologetically supported eugenics and sterilizing 'inferior' people. Does that make Planned Parenthood a bad idea?

It makes Planned Parenthood an organization one should judge in modern context separable from its origins, much like freedom of speech and ownership of other people from Greek philosophy.

It should certainly make you stop and think...

Would'nt you be suspicious if Hitler came up with some sort of program?

This kind of reasoning opens you up to the genetic fallacy. If you believe the moral status of the origin of a thing is necessarily transmitted to the thing itself, then you are liable to consider Hitler's pernicious concept of Der Volk and the Volkswagen to be equally evil.

Did you know that the guy who wrote the First Amendment also owned slaves? It seems like a nuance we might want to consider!

...and was a man. And guaranteed freedom only to men.

great reply - calling out another strawman.....

And that was a null reply, adding nothing at all!

Btw a strawman is an invented situation. I called out a real thing. So, maybe, non-sequitur, or no true Scotsman, or something like that. But Strawman? No.

And so we pick and choose which ideals to carry on and which to throw away.

Do you see anything wrong with freedom of speech?

The question is probably too broad to be useful. I see several situations where it is extremely healthy to a society and several situations where it can be harmful and even countries like the United States restrict it.

My freedom of speech (under US law) doesn't allow me to go around accusing my neighbor of pedophilia, for example, without opening me up to a hefty lawsuit if they are not, in fact, a pedophile.

Even in this forum we're using right now (founded by an organization associated with a man who once wrote an essay titled "What You Can't Say"), there are things I could transmit here which would result in a swift, merciless, and I argue just ban from our benevolent moderators.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com