[Politics] What is, in your opinion, a necessary set of minimal restrictions on freedom of thought, speech and expression?
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It seems to me a repeating pattern that once freedom of thought, speech and expression is limited for essentially any reason, it will have unintended consequences.
Once the tools are in place, they will be used, abused and inevitably end up in the hands of someone you disagree with, regardless of whether the original implementer had good intentions.
As such I'm personally very averse to restrictions. I've thought about the question a fair bit – there isn't a clear cut or obvious line to draw.
Please elaborate and motivate your answer. I'm genuinely curious about getting some fresh perspectives.
depends on scope
I think that a gov't has an interest in suppressing calls to violence, hate speech, and medical misinformation in the name of protecting its citizenry. I don't think it can ethically suppress other kinds of expression, especially political express, most especially criticism of the government.
I think a voluntary community, however, can ethically set much narrower limits on expression within community space. If a group of friends has a movie night and Jamie keeps spoiling the endings, it's okay to stop inviting her to movie night. An online forum dedicated to urbanism can remove posts containing pro-car propaganda, and ban repeat offenders. A school can have a dress code.
But no person; no organization; no entity below the level of, say, Ma'at; none can set limits on what someone thinks. Thoughts are not consistently voluntary, and are not consistently the result of an ethical process, anymore than laughing when ticked or blinking in a bright light.
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You claim these laws aren't a problem, then mention that governments are in fact abusing them literally right now.
Really showing off your capacity for nuance in that comment
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It seems to me a repeating pattern that once freedom of thought, speech and expression is limited for essentially any reason, it will have unintended consequences.
Once the tools are in place, they will be used, abused and inevitably end up in the hands of someone you disagree with, regardless of whether the original implementer had good intentions.
As such I'm personally very averse to restrictions. I've thought about the question a fair bit – there isn't a clear cut or obvious line to draw.
Please elaborate and motivate your answer. I'm genuinely curious about getting some fresh perspectives.
I think it’s disingenuous to group freedom of thought with speech and expression. Limiting the first is impossible, while every country on earth limits the other two to some degree.
My personal opinion is that you shouldn’t be able to hurt people in stupid, hateful, predictable ways.
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Really showing off your capacity for nuance in that comment
Say what you like, but I just can't think of any way to write hate speech laws that isn't incredibly abusable. Handing the government an excuse to punish to people is inherently dangerous. While it's certainly necessary in some instances, I think we should be very, very careful about adding to the list of things you can get thrown in prison for.
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Say what you like, but I just can't think of any way to write hate speech laws that isn't incredibly abusable. Handing the government an excuse to punish to people is inherently dangerous. While it's certainly necessary in some instances, I think we should be very, very careful about adding to the list of things you can get thrown in prison for.
There is no situation where something is not abusable. doesn't mean you cannot have that thing. It means you figure out how to improve the consequences for the abuser.
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It seems to me a repeating pattern that once freedom of thought, speech and expression is limited for essentially any reason, it will have unintended consequences.
Once the tools are in place, they will be used, abused and inevitably end up in the hands of someone you disagree with, regardless of whether the original implementer had good intentions.
As such I'm personally very averse to restrictions. I've thought about the question a fair bit – there isn't a clear cut or obvious line to draw.
Please elaborate and motivate your answer. I'm genuinely curious about getting some fresh perspectives.
From whom? A corporation hosting things on a site or the government deciding what's legal to say?
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There is no situation where something is not abusable. doesn't mean you cannot have that thing. It means you figure out how to improve the consequences for the abuser.
Right, but there are degrees of abusable. There's a difference between "yes, you could abuse this thing" and "this thing will inevitably be abused." In my opinion, hate speech laws fall into the latter category. I know of too many cases of them being abused... and worse, they don't even seem to do much to prevent hatred. See this article.
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It seems to me a repeating pattern that once freedom of thought, speech and expression is limited for essentially any reason, it will have unintended consequences.
Once the tools are in place, they will be used, abused and inevitably end up in the hands of someone you disagree with, regardless of whether the original implementer had good intentions.
As such I'm personally very averse to restrictions. I've thought about the question a fair bit – there isn't a clear cut or obvious line to draw.
Please elaborate and motivate your answer. I'm genuinely curious about getting some fresh perspectives.
Personally, I like Simone Weil’s idea that total freedom of thought and expression are only truly possible in the absence of propaganda, political parties, and deception.
That is to say, it’s not really free thought if we’re just parroting what the party, news, etc. say.
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There should be no restrictions on freedom of thought. Simple reason: One cannot control their thoughts.
I think speech and expression should be limited in ways that prevent negative outcomes for individuals or populations of people based on immutable characteristics like sexuality, skin colour, ethnic background, etc.
I can see no reason why anyone should ever be allowed to use free speech to incite violence, or expressing oneself in a way that is destructive to others. There should be no reason why we allow people to target others with slurs.
There are already laws restricting speech and expression in numerous ways. For example: one cannot utter threats to another person, even though they are not physically doing anything and operating with "free speech".
If one cannot speak or express themselves without hurting others I see no reason why that should be tolerated in modern civilizations.
wrote last edited by [email protected]One cannot control their thoughts.
I want to know what you mean by this.
I don't know that i fully disagree with you, I don't get to will myself to instantly think any thought, but i have a plethora of tools at my disposal to manage my thought processes. when i find myself thinking thoughts that violate my values i introduce counter thoughts to balance it all out, or sometimes i just cut it off with a "we're done here for now" kinda vibe. I can control what kind of thoughts pop into my head in response to external stimuli by altering my values. Meditation and prayer also provide a means to alter or dissipate the flow of thoughts. Many of my values are at odds with each other, so i must partake in a seemingly constant exercise of identifying and resolving the dissonances in my values either internally (changing my values) or externally (attempting to alter the world around me to match my values).
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It seems to me a repeating pattern that once freedom of thought, speech and expression is limited for essentially any reason, it will have unintended consequences.
Once the tools are in place, they will be used, abused and inevitably end up in the hands of someone you disagree with, regardless of whether the original implementer had good intentions.
As such I'm personally very averse to restrictions. I've thought about the question a fair bit – there isn't a clear cut or obvious line to draw.
Please elaborate and motivate your answer. I'm genuinely curious about getting some fresh perspectives.
What is, in your opinion, a necessary set of minimal restrictions on freedom of thought, speech and expression?
- Liberty of thought?
What the fuck?! Anyone should be free to think what they want, no matter how ugly, dirty or stupid, or even criminal, that could be. That's thoughts, ffs. - Liberty of expression. My stance is that we should not tolerate call to murder or to direct violence against anyone or any group of persons (be it physical, or otherwise). That also means, we should not tolerate any call to the 'I feel offended' argument to try to shut anyone we disagree with (we're all free to not listen to anything we don't like, that doesn't mean we have any right to censor it), and no tolerance towards any call to 'vengeance' or to 'cancel' anyone no matter how much they 'deserved' it (judging and then, maybe, punishing someone should be the exclusive job of justice not of an angry (and stupid) mob of people).
For the rest, the liberty of expression and the liberty of discussion are fundamentals to any working democracy—and to any working educative system too, looking at you (way too many) colleges and universities. Their absence being key to the creation of any kind of... dictatorship you can think of.
I'll let anyone pick the kind of political regime they want to live in, I've made my choice and it's not a dictatorship even one controlled by the 'good guys'. Fuck that.
Edit: if you feel like downvoting this, by all mean do it but keep in mind that this won't teach me (or anyone else for that matter) much of your reasoning in doing so. So, if you want to help me (and anyone else reading this) realize how wrong I am, maybe explain why/how in a comment? Otherwise, your downvote won't mean much if anything, to me at least.
- Liberty of thought?
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Right, but there are degrees of abusable. There's a difference between "yes, you could abuse this thing" and "this thing will inevitably be abused." In my opinion, hate speech laws fall into the latter category. I know of too many cases of them being abused... and worse, they don't even seem to do much to prevent hatred. See this article.
wrote last edited by [email protected]That's an utterly trash article.
You may think that while there are isolated examples of abuse and absurdity, these laws nevertheless allow European nations to more effectively combat hatred.
No, I think that cherry picking extreme cases of people trying to abuse hate speech laws, not discussing the final outcomes of those cases including when the accuser was punished for abusing hate speech laws, and not examining their positive cases in any way shape or form, is obviously fucking asinine and doesn't prove the point the author thinks.
You’d be surprised to learn, then, that citizens in European countries with laws restricting hate speech and Holocaust denial experience worse rates of antisemitic attitudes than the United States, sometimes by a large margin.
No, I wouldn't.
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you can effectively combat anti-Semitism, but still end up with more of it, if you start with higher levels of anti-Semitism
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there are a million other factors effecting anti-Semitism, drawing a causal relationship between high anti-Semitism rates and whether or not they have hate-speech laws is asinine, kindergarten level, "reasoning"
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hate-speech laws are not just about anti-Semitism, but about literally every other hateful prejudice as well
The author of that article is, quite frankly, a fucking idiot at best, or an ideologue intentionally trying to deceive you at worst.
The on the ground reality is that in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the UK, Europe, etc, groups like the KKK will be investigated and prosecuted, and in the US they won't. If you think hate speech laws are so bad you're gonna have to find enough cases of abuse that they cancel out all the cases of far right terror groups being successfully disrupted, and here's the thing, you won't, because they don't exist.
There's a reason that hate-speech laws are broadly popular in the countries that have them.
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From whom? A corporation hosting things on a site or the government deciding what's legal to say?
IMO any sufficiently large online platform should constitute a public space for purposes of these freedoms, essentially removing the ability of individual organizations to direct public discourse through platform ownership.
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should have the ability to restrict hate speech and threats of violence
Who decides what is considered hate speech and threats of violence?
The rest of your comment indicates you're aware of the vagueness of these terms (and existing instances of regulatory abuse).
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depends on scope
I think that a gov't has an interest in suppressing calls to violence, hate speech, and medical misinformation in the name of protecting its citizenry. I don't think it can ethically suppress other kinds of expression, especially political express, most especially criticism of the government.
I think a voluntary community, however, can ethically set much narrower limits on expression within community space. If a group of friends has a movie night and Jamie keeps spoiling the endings, it's okay to stop inviting her to movie night. An online forum dedicated to urbanism can remove posts containing pro-car propaganda, and ban repeat offenders. A school can have a dress code.
But no person; no organization; no entity below the level of, say, Ma'at; none can set limits on what someone thinks. Thoughts are not consistently voluntary, and are not consistently the result of an ethical process, anymore than laughing when ticked or blinking in a bright light.
calls to violence, hate speech, and medical misinformation in the name of protecting its citizenry. I don’t think it can ethically suppress other kinds of expression, especially political express, most especially criticism of the government.
...and yet political expression and both "calls to violence" and "hate speech" are overlapping. Is a call to revolution not the ultimate criticism of the government? (but also inherently violent?)
Who gets to decide what is hateful, violent or misinformation? How do we prevent the tools used to regulate dissemination of these types of expression from being applied against other things, or the definitions of the terms from being changed/drifting over time? (Consider for instance statements regarding transgender individuals somehow getting covered by medical disinformation laws...)
I think a voluntary community, however, can ethically set much narrower limits on expression within community space.
I agree, I think this could be applied even regarding non-voluntary spaces.
However, if a forum has a sufficiently large number of members amongst the population, I believe it should be considered a public space (and have these freedoms apply), hence taking away the power of controllers of large platforms to dictate/limit/direct the public discourse.
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I think it’s disingenuous to group freedom of thought with speech and expression. Limiting the first is impossible, while every country on earth limits the other two to some degree.
My personal opinion is that you shouldn’t be able to hurt people in stupid, hateful, predictable ways.
They are tied, because the other two freedoms are intrinsically linked to the first. If a thought is not permitted to be expressed, then it is, for all intents and purposes, prohibited.
Consider how often you forget something. I write things down to remember them. If that thought, expressed, were considered criminal, then it becomes a limitation also on thought itself.
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It seems to me a repeating pattern that once freedom of thought, speech and expression is limited for essentially any reason, it will have unintended consequences.
Once the tools are in place, they will be used, abused and inevitably end up in the hands of someone you disagree with, regardless of whether the original implementer had good intentions.
As such I'm personally very averse to restrictions. I've thought about the question a fair bit – there isn't a clear cut or obvious line to draw.
Please elaborate and motivate your answer. I'm genuinely curious about getting some fresh perspectives.
Something I find funny is that the British conservative government granted themselves a lot of powers to stop protest and arrest people over internet posts. Then a labour government takes power, starts using it their way, and the conservatives are whining
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It seems to me a repeating pattern that once freedom of thought, speech and expression is limited for essentially any reason, it will have unintended consequences.
Once the tools are in place, they will be used, abused and inevitably end up in the hands of someone you disagree with, regardless of whether the original implementer had good intentions.
As such I'm personally very averse to restrictions. I've thought about the question a fair bit – there isn't a clear cut or obvious line to draw.
Please elaborate and motivate your answer. I'm genuinely curious about getting some fresh perspectives.
"Your right to swing your fist ends where the nose of someone else begins"
You can say what ever the fuck you want, as long as you dont hurt someone else doing so.
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I think it’s disingenuous to group freedom of thought with speech and expression. Limiting the first is impossible, while every country on earth limits the other two to some degree.
My personal opinion is that you shouldn’t be able to hurt people in stupid, hateful, predictable ways.
Can you define "hurt". Do you mean physically or emotionally? If the latter then I think it is too restrictive.
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I will repost something I wrote a few months ago here on Lemmy.
My ethos boils down to…
- The Golden Rule: Your rights end where other’s rights begin, and vice versa.
- Natural Rights: Any action or inaction, thought, or word, spoken or written, that does not cross the line of the Golden Rule is a natural right.
- Ethics: All ethics are founded upon, and entirely dependent upon, points 1 & 2.
- Morality Is Unethical: Morality, allowing for arbitrary precepts, is inherently unethical.
- Effort: Strive to live ethically.
- Inaction is Action: Inaction is, itself, an action. If your inaction results (even indirectly) in someone’s natural rights being infringed, your inaction is unethical.
- Consideration: Actions often have cascading, indirect consequences, and you bear full responsibility for them. Therefore, failure to consider the indirect consequences of your (in)actions is also unethical.
- Graciousness: Treat others the way they wish to be treated. Recognize the dividends that gracious behavior has on preserving the natural rights of both yourself and others.
- Defend the Social Contract: Ethical behavior is a contract between individuals. Aggressors and instigators who violate that contract are not subject to its protections. As such, adherents are obliged to defend both themselves and others from such infringements to preserve the greater social stability.
- Imperfection: Acknowledge that no body, no thing, and no system is perfect. Not you, not others, not nature, not these precepts. Mistakes are inevitable, it is the effort and intention that matters. Accept and treasure imperfection, and be faithful to the spirit rather than the letter.
Can you give us an example of point 1 with regards to hate speech? Or a call for violence against another?
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"Your right to swing your fist ends where the nose of someone else begins"
You can say what ever the fuck you want, as long as you dont hurt someone else doing so.
Calling somebody a racist or sexist hurts their feelings, should that be allowed?
Calling somebody out publicly can hurt their livelihood and thus ability to get things like medical care, should that be allowed?
