[tunesmith]

If "consequences" implies loud and effective speech that demolishes the speech it is responding to, or even an individual choice not to associate with the utterer, I agree. If it implies crap like doxing, boycotts, and professional sabotage, then I think something essential gets lost in our defense of free speech. Free speech isn't just an amendment, it's a basic principle that makes everyone safer.

[ubernostrum]

Boycotts are speech. Refusing to associate with people is speech. Holding people accountable for what they say is speech

Are you in favor of censoring such speech?

I ask because the only way to get rid of the "consequences" you deride is to introduce large-scale censorship designed to privilege the person who speaks first. Which then turns any debate into nothing more than a race to be first to say something, after which one can censor one's critics under the guise of preventing boycotts, etc.

[tunesmith]

There's a difference between censorship, and arguing that something is ethically wrong and that we shouldn't do it. Censorship is being in favor of some sort of governmental, lawful, or otherwise forceful action preventing these practices, and I am not in favor of that.

I am generally in favor of "refusing to associate" since that implies personal choice.

"Holding people accountable" is semantically meaningless since it can be applied to both appropriate and wildly inappropriate actions.

There are also different kinds of boycotts - like, there's a difference between boycotting a book, and boycotting the publishing company of a book. These are more on a spectrum and should be debated on a case-by-case basis. But these days, many social-media-driven boycotts are on the chilling-free-speech side, which is why I spoke generally about them above, even though there are exceptions.

[ubernostrum]

There's still no way out here for you. The only way to shut down your social "chilling effect" is to impose an equally-powerful social "chilling effect" on everyone except the first person to speak.

[tunesmith]

That's untrue because there is always a remedy for speech, and that's more speech. Actual speech, in contrast to a boycott, or doxxing, or professional sabotage. "Make your argument", don't seek to prevent them from making theirs.

There's a difference between speech, and seeking to punish someone for their speech. Failure to recognize that spirals us to an ever-more authoritarian atmosphere until you find yourself the one being punished.

[ubernostrum]

Boycotts are "more speech". Campaigns to refuse to associate with a person or company are "more speech".

The comment I initially replied to categorized "speech that demolishes the speech it is responding to". That's still speech. Trying to declare it off-limits, legally or socially, is still an attack on speech.

Similarly, your "punish someone for their speech" is... well, you're condemning people who responded to speech with more speech. Because you didn't like the speech they responded with. There is no way to be a free-speech absolutist and be against boycotts, blacklists, and all the other "authoritarian" stuff you're complaining about, because those things are just as much speech as what they're responding to.

[tunesmith]

Well we won't get much further if you keep defining away the distinction I am trying to make.

It's illustrative to look at this form of definition when thinking about a boycott, which is an effort to discourage free speech.

"An effort to discourage free speech" is free speech.

"An effort to discourage tolerance" is tolerance. ("You must tolerate my intolerance!")

"An effort to discourage liberty" is liberty.

"An effort to discourage diversity" is diversity. (This is literally the form of argument that the manifesto author engaged in.)

[tptacek]

So is free association.