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Comment by djsumdog | Hacker News Reader

I remember visiting India as a kid with my family, and one of my cousins telling me about an America TV series that was banned. I didn't think much of it at the time, but as I've grown older, I've really come to appreciate the freedom of speech we have in America. I just wrote a post about it:

https://battlepenguin.com/politics/why-i-no-longer-hate-amer...

India is literally the largest democratic country by population in the world. Despite its issues, it has a functioning democracy, yet its freedom of speech is limited.

I've lived in a few different countries, and one thing that still amazes me is that America still has some of the strongest court prescient when it comes to speech laws. We have restrictions of course, like all countries do, but I've never seen the US ranked high on the free speech indexes I've seen. My own research leads me to believe the US and Japan stand out as the two nations with some of the strongest free speech laws (although Japan's have some challenging issues with copyright and fair use).

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The USA has more freedom of speech that many countries, but its heavily biased on certain ways. To show violence on TV is Ok, but to show a naked body makes people go all full censorship.

That a nip slip in 2004 generated news around all the country and intensified fines on "indecency" is just plain ridiculous. That level of censorship is very difficult to justify when other countries are much more comfortable showing nudity.

So, the USA is not in a bad place when come to censorship. But, it has a long way to improve.

The TV part is a legacy of 1950s era laws for free-to-air broadcast radio and television.

You say the USA has a cultural aversion to nudity. But it also legally produces a vast quantity of legal pornography, and the web hosting companies for the world's largest online paid and advertising-supported pornography operations are all in the USA.

And provided that things like ID age checking, consent and record-keeping are all followed, nobody is kicking in their doors and arresting the operators.

There is no "full censorship" of nudity in the USA.

Free speech is not about releasing every movie or TV show produced by entitled people. It's about free speech of common people. A person getting fired for a thing he/she commented a decade ago is not free speech. USA has lot to do with free speech which really matters.

USA was top country regarding free speech in maybe 1980s but now, it needs to change it's policies to be one.

You’ve made a common mistake - constitutionally guaranteed freedom of speech means freedom from the government restricting you from or persecuting you for speech.

That does not mean citizens need to tolerate whatever you say. For example, a commenter on HN might break the rules and get banned by dang. Dang isn’t violating their constitutional rights, because dang/HN isn’t the government. [1]

Similarly, trump the private citizen was free to block people on Twitter. Trump the President was directed by courts to unblock a person because their ability to participate in public discourse had been curtailed by a government official. [2] When Trump is no longer president, he will be free to block anyone once more.

I understand where you’re coming from - you felt that back in the day you were free to say whatever you liked without fear of repercussions from private citizens. I agree but this could be because of a couple of changes

- we store everything that’s said. A passing comment from 10 years ago isn’t stored, but a tweet is.

- society changes what is acceptable to say. There were restrictions at that time as well (the n word could get you fired) but now society also frowns upon a broader range of transgressions.

This is fine, society is entitled to change its mind. 25 years ago only 25% of Americans were supportive of gay rights. Today it’s 67%. [3] You can see how a homophobic slur would be acceptable at that time but not in 2020.

[1] - or are they?! X-Files theme plays

[2] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-trump-twitter/u-s-asks-su...

[3] https://news.gallup.com/poll/311672/support-sex-marriage-mat...

The problem in the US is that you have labor laws that do not protect workers, so private citizens have all the free speech in the world, but they can't use it out of fear of being fired. And there's no free speech in the work place as the boss can fire you on the spot for whatever. Do you then have free speech when it does not extend to the work place where you spend 1/3 of your day?

I find it interesting how many seem so content with that constitutionally guaranteed freedom of speech means freedom from the government restricting you.

At what point does that stop being useful, as corporations gain power over the government?

Some used to worry that private malls replacing public venues for people congregating caused an erosion of rights. Now the Internet is mostly private malls. Anyone can self host a blog, still, but most spend their virtual lives in the "online private malls".

It almost sounds like you're described freedom of speech as a right to be heard. That's a distinction of positive/negative freedoms as mentioned previously in this thread. You can host a blog and your speech won't be restricted (negative freedom), but if no one is viewing it, that's because no one cares to hear what you have to say. You don't have the right to be heard (positive freedom) because that would require people being forced to hear you.

If the problem is that you can't build an audience it's not because your freedom of speech is being restricted, it's because no one wants to listen to you.

Or it's because the town square is gone and you have the free speech corner somewhere off into the woods.

And one of the primary reasons why private speech is so heavily restricted by other private citizens because government cannot restrict you.

For the kinds of things people in America get fired, in European countries they get arrested for that.

Free speech is a culture phenomenon in the US that goes well beyond the US constitution.

This argument that only the direct legal limitations is enforced is very naive and a much more modern take because social media companies have largely ignored the cultural and ethical implications. Yet plenty of people, organizations, policies, and general common sense have embraced free speech voluntarily (ie, companies refusing to try to control their employees speech and views pushed outside of the workplace).

> I remember visiting India as a kid with my family, and one of my cousins telling me about an America TV series that was banned. I didn't think much of it at the time, but as I've grown older, I've really come to appreciate the freedom of speech we have in America.

I don't get that statement. For example, there are a lot of banned TV series in "America" (I assume USA?), too. Not even going to mention all that other censorship there ... I didn't read your article yet, though. Just in case you clarify on that statement there.

What series have been banned in the us? I can watch anything I want here.

https://rsf.org/en/ranking It seems you are not that right.

And it seems anyone who has traveled outside of their home country recognizes this list as the bullshit that it is. Please stop linking it.

Any source for that, looks pretty good to me? Been to 30 or so different countries but not entirely sure why traveling abroad is relevant.

You probably won't get a reply. At least a rational one. I experienced similar sentiment here on HN when discussion the topic of freedom a while back.

Reporters without borders is probably one of the best sources to evaluate the quality of Freedom of Press worldwide.

But for some people arguing that not all is great with their freedom in the US challenges a part of their identity. And that makes rational discussion at least difficult.

As an example: Growing up near the Iron Curtain (on the western side) I believed for a long time, that we were the universally free side, while there was no freedom in the east.

During the last 10 years or so I realized that there were freedoms on the other side I didn't know of. And have never had in this so called free society.

I came to realize that there are different freedoms and that every society has different limits to these freedoms. Sometimes even within one country there are different limits to the same freedom for different social groups. Take Germany for example. The freedom to receive a good to great education depends massively on the affluency of one's family. There is nearly no chance of social movement for the poor. Or take the freedom to tell your boss what a bad idea it is to increase dividends for shareholders by 10% while letting people go (with the official reason being told is, that the company is struggling) and telling the rest, that there is no mt enough earnings to warrant a raise. I know people who were fired because of this.

Or take the outcry at Google when someone at Google published an internal mail with right wing leaning (if I remember correctly).

I am very much left leaning, but I would not challenge some parts of the ideological agendas being pushed at my workplace because I fear being ostracized.

So to make a long argument short I think freedom isn't an absolute. And the ideology behind it is often part of someone's identity. That makes rational discussion difficult.

> As an example: Growing up near the Iron Curtain (on the western side) I believed for a long time, that we were the universally free side, while there was no freedom in the east.

> During the last 10 years or so I realized that there were freedoms on the other side I didn't know of. And have never had in this so called free society.

Mind sharing some examples?

I think he mentioned indirectly the freedom to have a good education independently on one's parents wealth.

For example there were many instances, were people were telling their boss what an idiot he/she was and I know of many cases were it even came to push, punch and shove. They did not loose their jobs for speaking their mind freely. On the other hand - while the west was allowed to tell their government what idiots they were, they boss was spared, because he/she could fire you (more or less) at will.

Also the freedom of social upwards movement was way greater in eastern Germany than in western Germany. Also the freedom of a better educational system (propaganda was massive in both systems none the less).

You appear to be comparing the 2 kinds of liberty Isiah Berlin outlined[1], that of negative and positive liberty. English (and hence) American conceptions of liberty historically tend strongly to negative liberty, European countries like Germany emphasise positive liberty more - though as you point out there's a mix everywhere and to differing degrees.

One of my favourite interviews is with Berlin[2] where he talks about why positive liberty is so dangerous.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pfhQhdA-zss Tom Richey with an intro [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TIP9IjJcZr4 Isiah Berlin interview on the ABC on freedom

The problem with 'positive' liberty is simple. You can't have it without taking negative liberty away first- i.e. Universal Healthcare as a 'right'- you have to compel multiple levels of society via coercion in order to fulfill that right, thus weakening their negative rights to be free from such coercion.

For some reason, many people seem cling to a nebulous idea of 'government,' that is more a wish fulfillment mechanism than concrete enforcer entity, can provide positive rights without impinging on the more basic negative rights.

> Or take the outcry at Google when someone at Google published an internal mail with right wing leaning (if I remember correctly).

The only thing that comes to mind for me here is the Damore memo, except 1) he didn't publish it, and 2) it was very left-leaning. It was about how to actually achieve the company's diversity goals, there were just some parts of it based on actual research that went against accepted narratives.

Was there some other leaked email I'd not seen?

So, I'm not arguing "USA #1". Never would, and to be honest, I haven't been to every country to compare. But their reasoning for ranking it low is 'Trump cracking down' blah blah. Go to CNN's website right now, their top headline is literally calling him a sham. The press here is free to do this, naturally, despite alarmist theories.

Some of the countries ranked higher(in rank = lower number) are not even so safe to be in. How can you consider liberty among a place people can't even freely go where they want to report?

I'd say that as someone who actually has traveled outside their country, this list seems pretty fair to me ( at least for the countries I have traveled to or have friends/family staying in). what is your exact bone of contention? Methodology or specific country's ranking?

In that ranking India is only 0.01 points ahead of pakistan. Does not pass my smell test about its methodology to be honest.

As an Indian, knowing the journalistic persecution and state of free speech in India, I wouldn't be surprised if India is tied up with Pakistan.

Here is some stuff to read up on this http://www.rightsrisks.org/banner/india-medias-crackdown-dur...

http://attacksonrtiusers.org/

This is totally wrong. We have free speech but the major problem is that poor and educated aren't ready for this level of openness in our society.

And this statement here (one I’ve heard before from others as well) demonstrates one of our biggest problems (speaking as someone who grew up in India) - and makes my blood boil.

Without respect for the individual and individual rights, Indian society will not progress. Sitting on your high horse and making judgements about how the poor and uneducated (or any other group) aren’t ready for free speech is not the way.

Here's something fresh for today; Amnesty India quits India operations due to govt' reprisals. https://amnesty.org.in/news-update/amnesty-international-ind...

Reality, I fear is fairly dystopic and I can keep posting such news articles all day which show India's slide into Authoritarianism.

Sri Lanka ranking well ahead of India is an even bigger red flag.

Journalists and editors have been openly killed in Sri Lanka for opinion pieces that dared to tarnish the government.

Agreed but it is ranked 127 so it’s towards the bottom as it should be.

The difference is actually 0.19 points. You can read their description of press freedom in India https://rsf.org/en/india or of Pakistan https://rsf.org/en/pakistan and neither sounds that great.

I constantly see Norway/Denmark/Sweden/Switzerland at the top of good lists, like this rsf one. Never been there, but a bit jealous (and happy for those living there) that other countries that have insanely more resources at their disposal are unable to copy these tiny countries.

Ar a private citizen do you believe that you're going to be unmolested by the US govt over your speech (and let's say there are a 100 statements test which include all kinds of speech) vs Norwegian govt?

Their methodology seems strongly politically motivated, because they rank Germany very highly despite the repression of speech related to Turkey by journalists in Germany. Germany literally made certain types of speech illegal for geopolitical reasons because of their ties to Turkey.

Perhaps these rankings would have been believable 5 years ago, but today, they are not. The United States is also rated much too low here, which also stinks of political motivation. While we do have a President that can't seem to help but open his mouth to release stupidity and toxicity, the US has the strongest legal protections of speech and press in the world, and the only government action against journalists that might shift this belief is the ongoing case with Julian Assange, too recent to have been reflected in these rankings.

There is, to my knowledge, only one country which has Constitutionally protected free speech and it's the United States. There are censorship laws on the books in most other countries, either in fact, or in actuality. Germany for instance censors many types of speech. You may have some argument that this is a good thing, but nonetheless it shouldn't rank higher on any unbiased free speech index than the US, and yet here is one in which it is more than 30 positions higher ranked.

What good is all of this semblance of free speech when the communication and print platforms of our age that enable the transmission of vast portions of our speech essentially dictate what they will carry and what they wont.

Unless you publish a physical book of course and then promote it and distribute it yourself or on a much smaller scale, you post pamphlets on utility poles or other such low tech-low reach media, a FB or a Twitter or a Tik Tok can take down even your "missing pet" posts, because your pet breed offends some people in some manner. They reserve the right to do so. Of course you wont find them doing that, but the fact that they have to power to do so, in itself should be disconcerting.

I don't know what you're getting at ( in this post ; I havent read your blog post yet ) but America currently is one of the most restrictive places on earth to express your thoughts and then hope to have them transmitted fairly to a wide swath of people, both geographically and ideologically.

  America still has some of the strongest court 
  prescient when it comes to speech laws

Also, I don't know what that means.

>I don't know what you're getting at ( in this post ; I havent read your blog post yet ) America currently is one of the most restrictive places on earth to express your thoughts and then hope to have them transmitted fairly to a wide swath of people, both geographically and ideologically.

I'm in America, and I can access plenty of racist, sexist, government propaganda, anti government propaganda, anti religion, pro religion, anti police, pro police, violence, pornography, and so much more with the click of a button. If I wanted to, I can also upload any of these thoughts myself to someone else's computer (or use my own computer) and then post links to it to any number of online forums or chat groups where people would have access to them just by clicking on a link.

Whether a tech-savvy person can run boolean searches on 5 different search engines ( that may not even be English-first engines ) and then find a "Daily Stormer" or two is not the point here - youre either missing the point entirely or deliberately gaslighting here.

The point is that the content is hard to reach and nearly inaccessible to wide swaths of the population if the forces that be, deem that content troubling, to the people in their walled gardens and the ideological bubbles, they operate in.

This way, you can effectively screen and curate what views and slants reach the masses and manufacture consensus around an issue easily. You and me and the tech-inclined can find easy workarounds but that is besides the point.

Thats a huge problem.

That’s just Noise, not communication. Try making a reasoned and articulated argument for something controversial (and in a polarized society like the US one, mostly anything is) and see how long it takes for takedowns and shadowbans to reduce your reach down to nothing.

The exercise of freedom often depends on the context. During the latest Iraq invasion, when the death toll started to rise, US TV networks were forbidden from displaying coffins returning from the war zone, because it could have fueled anti-war feelings among the population. It may have been a lot less than jailing someone for merely saying something the government doesn't like, which is what happens in countries we define as non-free, but it's still acting against freedom of press that turns out into lying to the public.

Ummm what? America bans films and TV series too.

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

SO in the last 20 years 2 movies have been very briefly banned because of relevant court cases and one wasn't allowed to be shown on tv within a month of an election(supreme court overturned that law). I wouldn't really say that equals America bans films and tv series.

Be careful what you wish for... while I've always been a huge fan of the First Amendment, the consequences of completely unrestrained speech have never been clearer, with quite significant numbers of people believing that Bill Gates engineered Covid-19 to implant computer chips in your brain through vaccines, and other stuff which would be hilarious if it weren't so destructive.

I am glad they exercised those freedoms in the examples you mentioned. I did however miss the destruction they caused. And why wouldn't they poke fun at some dinosaur who desperately tries to remain relevant? I should start making more memes targetting billionaires, think of all the havoc!

The destruction, in this particular case, is that a lot of people aren't going to get a vaccine when it's released, which will kill a lot of people. More broadly, the fact that mis- and dis-information spreads more widely than real information today has led to a complete breakdown of a shared factual reality, which is a prerequisite for any kind of consensus-based or democratically based system of government. If we're trying to get to Chicago and half of us believe we're in San Francisco and the other half believe we're in Philadelphia, we're not going to make any progress beyond which of us is better at tug of war.

IMO: with limited freedom of speech you can't really have a functioning democracy, just something that resembles one and is temporarily stable.

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