[crdoconnor]

Goebbels was in favor of free speech for views he liked. So was Stalin. If you’re really in favor of free speech, then you’re in favor of freedom of speech for precisely the views you despise. Otherwise, you’re not in favor of free speech.

Besides, censoring Nazis and other undesirable types (e.g. ISIS propaganda) is ineffective at shutting them up and endears potential recruits to them. It would likely be more effective to subtly mix their propaganda with counter-propaganda instead of playing whack-a-mole with their accounts.

[groby_b]

You got me. In my personal environment, my house? Speech that I don't accept doesn't happen. And it turns out that that's actually perfectly fine, because free speech should only not be restricted by the government.

[crdoconnor]

>In my personal environment, my house?

Weren't we talking about freedom of speech on the open web though?

When you mentioned walled gardens I assumed you meant Twitter not your living room.

[fauigerzigerk]

Absolute free speech is not a sustainable position, because it conflicts with other basic rights, freedoms and laws.

Would you not accept that directly inciting violence against specific groups or individuals must be banned?

[peoplewindow]

It's better to ban nothing when it comes to speech. Any restrictions at all rapidly escalate into enormous restrictions, hypocrisy and logical contradictions.

Actually by now, I automatically assume anyone who uses the phrase "hate speech" doesn't actually care about violent speech at all, just shutting down people they don't agree with.

Consider that students in America keep arguing that any opinion they don't like is "violence" that makes them feel "unsafe", and of course anyone to the right of Marx is "promoting intolerance and hatred". That's a pretty bad abuse of the word violent, but if you say the only kind of speech that is banned is speech that incites violence then pretty quickly everyone is claiming any ideological enemy is "inciting violence" with whatever justification they can find.

So there had better be really good reasons for such bans. But are there? I am struggling to think of cases where someone stood up and announced "kill those people" and it actually happened, outside of extremist Islamic preachers e.g. the fatwa against Salman Rushdie. That's rare, but also, the moment you say that sort of preaching isn't allowed anymore you run into the question of people's right to practice religion, as there is quite a lot of incitement to violence in basically every ancient holy book.

And then there's the hate speech that doesn't get prosecuted because it's by politically important groups: https://www.salon.com/2013/05/07/twitters_latest_unfunny_tre...

In the end, when I see the apparently small amount of physical world violence definitively and directly caused by speech, vs the huge numbers of people trying to classify things they disagree with as hate speech, I am forced to conclude that the cost/benefit ratio is not worth it and the first amendment has got it right.

[fauigerzigerk]

I agree that there is a danger of overreach and political instrumentalisation and that we are seeing it in full force in many public debates right now.

But I think that the sort of wording that nokcha posted in the sibling comment does a pretty good job at putting the breaks on any tendencies to extend the meaning of inciting violence endlessly.

I think the real problem of overreach arises because governments are trying to outsource censorship to huge corporations that are running our centralised internet.

These corporations are not going to be as wise as the judge ruling on Brandenburg v. Ohio. They are going err on the side of caution and ban everything remotely suspicious to avoid controversy. And then everyone will say it's not censorship because it's not the government doing it.

You are right that bans on speech are only very rarely needed. But that's how it should be. It should be a tool of last resort just like the use of lethal force by police should be a very rare exception. But I think we do need tools of last resort.

I want this particular tool of last resort in the hands of the courts though, and not applied automatically on a massive scale by corporations trying to stay in the good graces of governments.

[Retra]

>Any restrictions at all rapidly escalate into enormous restrictions [...]

This is a slippery slope argument and it is as weak as any.

Hate speech is that speech which has historically been used to 'justify' vast amounts of violence against mostly innocent people. More accurately, it is speech that is used to promote emotions which cause people to conveniently accept justifications of violence that overlook the individuality of a person. The speech that does this is designed to do it. And the consequences of engaging in such thinking can be almost arbitrarily bad.

The first amendment was written before WW2. It was written before Stalin, Hitler, Mao, Pol Pot, radio, television, internet, and modern journalism. It was also written by people with a questionable understanding of modern liberalism and to appease people with a far worse understanding of liberalism.

The first amendment is not sacred. Even if you can find fault in every alternative, this does nothing to absolve the faults already within it.

> the moment you say that sort of preaching isn't allowed anymore you run into the question of people's right to practice religion

Clearly christianity is outlawed in the US because stoning people (and by extension, homosexuals) is illegal. All that's happened here is that you're not allowed to grant yourself arbitrary rights by claiming they are 'religious.' All societies restrict the authority of religion. Either through secular principles such as this, or through religious persecution committed by another religion.

>I am struggling to think of cases where someone stood up and announced "kill those people" and it actually happened

This is laughable. Your ignorance isn't a argument. "I can't find any examples of something I didn't bother to look for examples of."

[nokcha]

Just to clarify: under Brandenburg v. Ohio (395 U.S. 444 (1969)), such speech can be punished (by the government) only if it is "directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action"; abstract advocacy of illegal violence is protected speech.