[commanderjroc]

I guess you could say that free speech has limits that are acceptable.

You know you can't yell fire in a crowded room and not get litigation and charges brought against you.

So, maybe 8chan just ran past the fine line of hate speech vs encouraging acts of hate. I.e you can be racist but you cannot encourage acts of extremism.

If 8Chan was a breeding ground for Islamic Extremists would people be okay with still existing?

[Meekro]

Little known fact about the phrase "fire in a crowded theater": it was coined in a criminal case against a man who was distributing leaflets criticizing the draft during World War 1. The Supreme Court upheld his conviction by comparing those leaflets to "shouting fire in a crowded theater" -- even though most readers here would agree that those two things are nothing alike.

I think there's a lesson in that: when we tolerate any censorship, it will inevitably be used by the powerful to oppress the powerless. If the powerful need to compare the targeted speech to "fire in a crowded theater" or "Nazism" or whatever, they'll do it whether it makes sense or not.

[tdb7893]

Yeah but on the other hand you shouldn't be able to shout fire in a crowded theater so you need some censorship. As with like 99% of political arguments is about finding the line because the absolutist arguments generally end up kinda silly.

[dmix]

It's never just used for the original case either.

Now that 8chan is down why not every other site with a subset of (violent?) racist users?

By doing something about one and not doing anything about another, is Cloudflare not basically giving their ideology a greenlight to exist? This is the type of backwards anti-intellectual thinking that will seep into the decision making.

"Slippery slopes" are a cliche for a reason when talking about this stuff because it never stops with one really good example nor within a very narrow scope. Making this debate all about 8chan misses the larger point because it sets a precedent. There's already tons of people who want way more than 8chan banned from the internet.

[tdb7893]

The problem for 8chan wasn't having bad users, every place has those, it was the specific way which it enabled them. Reddit or Facebook make effort to take down extremist threats, which puts them in a different league altogether. I'm fine with taking down places that enable them in that way and it hasn't seemed to have led to the slippery slope you are worried about so far.

[dmix]

The point is slippery slopes don't stop after the fact.

The next time twitter blows up at Cloudflare [or insert tech company name] over a tragedy what's going to happen?

Does this apply to Islamic Extremism or some radical groups in Ukraine or some hypothetical Flemish separatist group who is openly violent and posts similar un-moderated content? Or is it only for some highly touchy US problems since they're a US company or the topic got the most noise on Twitter/news sites?

[almost_usual]

Private companies are incentivized to make money, they can host and kick off whoever the hell they want. I don't understand what you're getting at? It's capitalism at work.

If 8chan wants to exist on the internet without worrying about being knocked offline then 8chan needs to either build their infrastructure or find companies that are willing to risk their reputation to support them.

[harryh]

Did you know that the "fire in a crowded room" metaphor comes from Schenck v. United States in which Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr used the metaphor to defend the criminality of protesting the military draft?

I'm not sure if that's the kind of history you want to align yourself with.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schenck_v._United_States

[nostrademons]

The other irony is that the holding of Schenk vs. United States was later overturned in Brandenburg vs. Ohio, which set the line for where free speech becomes unprotected at "inciting imminent lawless action":

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandenburg_v._Ohio

[UncleMeat]

Brandenburg overturned the specifics of Schenk, not the idea of free speech having limits. "There are valid limits of free speech" remains as true as ever.

[nostrademons]

I'd had a paragraph after that said "You can, in fact, yell "fire" in a crowded theater without breaking any laws", but edited it out because in certain situations this would also violate the revised test in Brandenburg (you still can't incite a riot legally, for example). But that paragraph made it a bit more clear that yes, the irony I'm talking about is that the specific examples in Schenk are no longer law, not the general principle that free speech has limits. The limits are significantly less restrictive than Schenk held, though.

[criddell]

You aren't aligning yourself with that by using the fire in a crowded room metaphor.

[harryh]

My point is that the phrase has a history of being used to criminalize speech that most people would now see as being worthy of protection. For those using it today, the burden is really on the accuser to show that they aren't doing the same.

[jonny_eh]

The justice's analogy in that case was bad, but otherwise it would have been a good argument.

If speech is meant to directly lead to harm, it should be constrained.

[stale2002]

I mean, I wouldn't use analogies that were originally created to target people who disagreed with the draft.

Whether or not the analogy applies now, is irrelevant. It's history makes it a bad analogy.

It'd be like saying stuff like "it's Ok to be white". It may be a true statement, but it was used by people who were trying to make racial attacks.

[lliamander]

> I mean, I wouldn't use analogies that were originally created to target people who disagreed with the draft.

> Whether or not the analogy applies now, is irrelevant. It's history makes it a bad analogy.

I appreciate your motivation, but I just can't get behind this line of reasoning. For one thing, most people aren't aware of the history.

For another, almost every good idea has a tainted history. (e.g. the golden rule. "Eh that? That's just something that Jesus guy said, and look how many people his followers killed in the crusades, witch-hunts, etc.")

Lastly, it's just not a form of rational thinking. Obviously the connotations of our words matter, but unless we can separate the connotation from the denotation we have no hope of arriving at the truth.

[mrguyorama]

In that case, wouldn't it be more that it isn't allowed to yell fire in a crowded theater with the express purpose to cause injury during a stampede? Would doing so "just as a prank bro" still be protected under American precedent?

[rosser]

I'm not a Constitutional or 1A scholar, but I believe the test remains whether the speech is substantially likely to result in "imminent lawless action". Whether you wanted people to get trampled, or just thought it was a lulz thing to do, exigently emptying a crowded room on false pretenses is probably going to yield some pretty lawless behavior.

EDIT: Even so, that test was IIRC conceived as a means of measuring whether political speech — specifically, advocating the use of force or criminal behavior — was 1A-protected, so I really wonder whether this line of thought isn't moot.

[badcede]

Wow, when did the internet figure that one out?

[bonestamp2]

> I guess you could say that free speech has limits that are acceptable.

There are already limits to free speech that most people don't complain about. The most frequent example is defamation.

I do like how Canada handles hate speed -- like defamation, it is illegal. There's really no benefit to protecting hate speech. If you argue it is a slippery slope, we're already on a slope with defamation so the benefits of adding hate speech out weight the risks of slipping further.

[whiddershins]

This analysis is completely wrong. Defamation has a fairly clear definition, causes specific damages, and is directed at an individual.

Hate speech is almost the definitive slippery slope, the definition changes in real-time and can easily and always expand.

[bonestamp2]

I supposed I should have mentioned how Canada defines illegal hate speech, because that has a clear definition too. The type of hate speech that is illegal there is hate speech that advocates or incites violence or genocide. That's clear and defines how it is damaging, therefore it's not definitively slippery.

[ttul]

Hate speech is illegal in Canada because it infringes on the right to security of the person - a Charter right. Freedom of speech is also protected, but the expression of one right cannot diminish the protection of another.

[maximente]

> I guess you could say that free speech has limits that are acceptable.

widely known and not really legally disputed.

> You know you can't yell fire in a crowded room and not get litigation and charges brought against you.

this seems like empty rhetoric; we already know that there are classes of speech that aren't 1A protected. this isn't controversial.

> If 8Chan was a breeding ground for Islamic Extremists would people be okay with still existing?

whether or not people "are okay" with something isn't relevant when discussing the legality of said thing, which seems to be what the rest of your post is focused on. so this seems like a red herring, or alternatively, the rest of your post was a red herring.

if your line of reasoning about the closure is legally oriented, then i'm sure you can find lots of things people aren't okay with, e.g. campaign finance.

[Reedx]

Christopher Hitchens yells fire in a crowded room here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Z2uzEM0ugY

More importantly, his talk is worth watching for a strong understanding of why free speech is so vital.

[yhamv]

>If 8Chan was a breeding ground for Islamic Extremists would people be okay with still existing?

Depends on whether those people support free speech or not.

[falcrist]

I don't think there's a contradiction between supporting freedom of expression and suggesting that such a freedom isn't absolute. There are limits, particularly when the use of that freedom treads on the freedoms of others.

Even US law recognizes this. You're not allowed to invite violence or rioting for example. There are also rules about perjury, liable, and other things that directly limit freedom of expression.

The real questions we should be asking here are where the line is between stating an opinion and inciting violence... And what should ISPs and edge providers be asked/allowed to do?

Because not being forced to provide a platform for the speech of someone else may also be a valid freedom. If I come into your property and say things you don't like, are you allowed to ask me to leave? What if I put up a sign in my front yard? Can I take it down?

IMO, we need neutrality regulations to protect ourselves from the corporations who control everything we see... But such neutrality regulations must necessarily include ISPs as well as edge providers. Otherwise they're worthless.

[tombert]

Not the OP, but I think you're missing the point of the question; the question is about hypocrisy. I think the poster was trying to say "a lot of people who claim that they love free speech would suddenly become really uncomfortable with the idea of a breeding ground for Islamic Extremists".

[anigbrowl]

Well, let us know if you ever arrive at an opinion on that question.

[logfromblammo]

The "fire in a crowded theater" metaphor is always mentioned in a discussion of free speech. It's like Godwin's Law. I'm tired of it.

You can say anything. But if the thing you say carries consequences beyond the utterance, the freedom of speech does not immunize that sayer from assuming responsibility for those consequences.

It's not about what happens afterward. It's about not removing someone's voice, for fear of what they might say with it.

8chan is not required to support freedom of speech; it's not the government. It is itself free to pick and choose who is allowed to use its platform. My opinion is that it should not engage in content-based censorship, because no one should. Once you start doing that, there's no ethically clear place where the line between acceptable and unacceptable should lie. If you can make a case for banning neo-Nazis and Boko Haram and Sinaloa Cartel and such, you can also make a case for banning people who put pineapple on pizza or ketchup on hot dogs, with the argument variables set to different values.

Information is not the dangerous thing, nor misinformation. When someone is recruited and turned into a soldier via online image boards, using the exact same psychology as state-based militaries around the world--dehumanizing the xeno, and propagandizing them as an existential threat to the in-group identity tribe--that isn't the fault of the medium. It is the responsibility of the recruiter, the propagandist.

The rightful answer to speech with undesired consequences is not censorship, but counter-propaganda, and to some extent psychological hardening of the whole populace, by encouraging skepticism, critical thought, and formation of individual identity and self-image over group identities.

The former is a more active measure that unfortunately requires a bloody-minded relentlessness combined with unending tolerance for nonsense. Imagine a Bill Nye vs. Ken Ham debate that lasts literally forever, and the toll that would surely take on Nye. Now sub in a pants-on-head flat-earther time-cube woo-woo troll for Ham. No one person could take it. And that's why when these fools show up, the thought-terminating cliches have to be countered with thought-provoking dissent. If you see bullshit, call bullshit.

And the latter is something that probably has to happen in young people, coming with a side effect of making them less governable, and harder to convince of anything. Resistance to radicalization over the Internet would directly translate to more difficult military recruiting, drops in the strength of religious affiliations, and harder political campaigns. Not exactly popular among those loving god and country.

It's probably easier to just censor the things the state doesn't want people to say, and just trust that they will stop with the threshold line in the correct place.

[jedmeyers]

> you can't yell fire in a crowded room and not get litigation and charges brought against you.

Of course you can yell 'fire' in a crowded room and not have any charges that stick brought against you. Are you arguing the point it is not allowed to yell to a large audience? Or there is something else here you are not mentioning, like for example whether or not the statement is true is the actual crux of the matter? Of course you can yell 'fire' in a crowded room - if there is a fire!

[1000units]

If 8Chan was a breeding ground for Islamic Extremists would people be okay with still existing?

Strangely enough, most people who find censorship ideologically palatable consider Jihadists a more sympathetic group than Incels. Note that ISIS beheadings have been subject to far less censorship than the Christchurch shooter's propaganda, for example.

[kristiandupont]

I doubt that.

[1000units]

I make a factual claim you can investigate on your own. Perhaps your findings will surprise you. As an aside, I recommend engaging with people you disagree with politically to understand their motivations and opinions. Much of political discourse is superficially ridiculous, but almost everything can be made sense of and appreciated once you get a view of the whole picture. Good luck.