Are you anti-free speech?

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Newme
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Are you anti-free speech?

Post by Newme » Mon Nov 13, 2017 6:48 pm

If you are against free speech, why? Do you honestly think putting your hand over someone’s mouth or otherwise preventing them from expression, helps educate people or make peace?

If you are for free speech, how do you exercise it?

An interesting clip by “Mr. Bean” - free speech is 2nd greatest need.
https://youtu.be/gciegyiLYtY

dogbite
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Re: Are you anti-free speech?

Post by dogbite » Mon Nov 13, 2017 8:33 pm

Free speech is about limiting government action against speechin public places. On private property, the owner has say in if you're allowed to speak in certain ways or not.

A newspaper can't be censored by the government in the USA though there are limits for libel, incitement of violence and so on. However the newspaper does pick and choose what it will print and what it won't. If you write a letter to the editor, they don't have to print it and can edit as they choose if they print it. You might pay the paper to publish an ad, announcement or other piece of work but they might not choose to accept it.

So the church can turn off the microphone and escort you off its property for speech it disapproves of.

Similarly the moderators here acting as appointed by the site owner can delete or edit speech that they find inappropriate to their purposes.

As to how I practice it, I read and watch and listen to a wide variety of news sources many of which i disagree with so I don't get an echo chamber effect.

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Jeffret
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Re: Are you anti-free speech?

Post by Jeffret » Mon Nov 13, 2017 11:29 pm

The U.S. has very strong free speech protections. I'm definitely in favor of these protections.

That being said, free speech rights, like all others, are not absolute. The classic example is that you don't have the right to shout "Fire!" in a crowded theater. There are a number of other exceptions to free speech rights. These tend to get pretty nuanced. There isn't a free speech right to obscenity, but the courts have struggled to define it. In 1964 Justice Potter Stewart famously explained, "I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced... (b)ut I know it when I see it ...". Child pornography is not protected as free speech. Under some situations, false statements of fact may not be protected free speech.

All of this, though, is about protecting speech from government control. It doesn't prevent private or other public actors from limiting the speech allowed in various venues under their control.

Mostly importantly, free speech does not require anyone to give you a platform to voice your speech. You are free to speak, but others don't have to provide you the means for you to share your speech. Even more, your right of free speech doesn't require others to listen to you. Twitter can kick you off. Facebook can ban you. The Apple Store doesn't have to let you propound to customers the superiority of Android. The Baptist Church doesn't have to let you preach Mormonism to them. NOM can restrict the kinds the speech that are allowable and commonly has during its lifetime and incarnations.

Rowan Atkinson's speech was about the campaign to Reform Section 5, also known as Feel Free to Insult Me. This campaign was successful in 2013 in getting prohibitions on insults dropped from UK law. In the U.S., insults have long been protected from government action. This doesn't free you from the potential consequences of such speech as you may be liable for libel or slander but the U.S. government doesn't prosecute you for insults and the UK no longer does.

Again, this doesn't prevent private actors agents from instituting their own policies against insults. Most workplaces have some rules prohibiting insults. If you insult the customers, that is usually a quick way out of a job. Insulting workers is often tolerated in bosses, but not so much in ordinary employees. Many conferences have instituted anti-harassment policies, which include prohibitions on insults. The moderators of NOM can institute rules, as desired, limiting insults, attacks, harassment, or falsehoods. Frequently NOM has had rules against the bearing of testimony or preaching .

Unfortunately, many times it isn't about educating people. It's clear that within private environments, allowing harassment, attacks, insults, and falsehoods doesn't necessarily improve education.

"Making peace" is kind of an odd goal to align with free speech. Free speech is often diametrically opposed to making peace. In fact, as the opposition to the campaign to Reform Section 5 pointed out, allowing insults is frequently not a way to foster peace.

(* I'm using "you" in the general, plural form, for lack of a better construct in English.)
"Close your eyes, for your eyes will only tell the truth,
And the truth isn't what you want to see" (Charles Hart, "The Music of the Night")

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Jeffret
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Re: Are you anti-free speech?

Post by Jeffret » Mon Nov 13, 2017 11:32 pm

Or are we talking about Freeze Peach?

Sometimes I get confused.
"Close your eyes, for your eyes will only tell the truth,
And the truth isn't what you want to see" (Charles Hart, "The Music of the Night")

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wtfluff
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Re: Are you anti-free speech?

Post by wtfluff » Tue Nov 14, 2017 9:24 am

Many times, the "issue" with free speech is that folks want to be free to say whatever they want, but those same folks don't want to be criticized for what they say.

While freedom of speech is protected, being free from criticism is not.
Faith does not give you the answers, it just stops you asking the questions. -Frater Ravus

IDKSAF -RubinHighlander

You can surrender without a prayer...

CaptainSalty
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Re: Are you anti-free speech?

Post by CaptainSalty » Tue Nov 14, 2017 10:28 am

wtfluff wrote:
Tue Nov 14, 2017 9:24 am
Many times, the "issue" with free speech is that folks want to be free to say whatever they want, but those same folks don't want to be criticized for what they say.

While freedom of speech is protected, being free from criticism is not.
This is very true. Similarly, free speech in a public place does not mean anyone has the slightest obligation to listen to you. We really prefer to moderate as absolutely little as possible on this site. I prefer a measure of benign negligence, because my biggest interest is not Mormonism. It's in in at least fourth place behind family, engineering, and Season 8 of "Game of Thrones".

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alas
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Re: Are you anti-free speech?

Post by alas » Tue Nov 14, 2017 11:33 am

Sometimes when someone is talking about their right to free speech, what they really want is consequence free free speech. For example, the church after prop 8 in California was complaining about they had a right to free speech to speak out against gay marriage. But no one had stopped the church from saying what it wanted to say. People just argued with them and picketed the temple. I found it ironic that the church that says that free agency is not free of consequences, wanted their own free speech to be free of consequences.

So, what everyone needs to remember is that if you have your free speech, so do the people who disagree with you. The people who disagree with you have the right to object, to picket, to protest, to tell you that they think you are a bigot, to tell you that they think you are offensive, or to ban you from their private property.

Another example, while we were the old NOM, someone came on saying the the holocaust was all a hoax. Thayne was the owner of the website, and he banned that person so fast. He said that he will to,erase a lot of things and give most people several chances to stop with offensive speech, but holocaust denial is not thing he has zero tolerance for. It was his right as the owner of the NOM website. Another time a person got banned because they kept starting arguments about porn. It was all they talked about, and they were so violently against porn that they started thread after thread after thread. NOM's purpose is not to argue the dangers of porn, and moderators other than me felt this person was disrupting the discussion of other topics and needed to be banned.

Just like there are limits on the second amendment, (my kid brother who has attempted to commit suicide complained that he has no second amendment rights, he was joking) and limits on religious practice, there are limits and consequences of free speech.

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Jeffret
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Re: Are you anti-free speech?

Post by Jeffret » Tue Nov 14, 2017 11:53 am

Here's a briefer, though harsher, explanation of the topic:
Image

(I'm not saying the sentiments expressed in the XKCD comic exactly apply in this discussion, but they are applicable a lot of times when someone raises the call for free speech.)
"Close your eyes, for your eyes will only tell the truth,
And the truth isn't what you want to see" (Charles Hart, "The Music of the Night")

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