[throwaway894345]

Have they? Because I still regularly encounter educated people who can't tell the difference between free speech and threats, harassment, etc. If you can't distinguish between free speech and coercive speech, then you don't understand the free-speech position that you purport to oppose ("He who knows only his own argument knows little of that").

I recall a thread on cancel culture a few months ago where virtually everyone on the pro-cancel-culture position were arguing that free speech ideals were meaningless because threats and harassment are also free speech ergo you can't oppose cancel culture without also opposing free speech--of course, threats and harassment aren't free speech, and this is precisely why free-speech proponents oppose cancel culture.

It seems like this is one area where more debate can be genuinely enlightening.

[baobabKoodaa]

It sounds like you have a very, very specific idea of what should be considered free speech, and you seem to have very little tolerance for people who hold a different opinion on that topic. Rather than saying "we disagree on what should be considered free speech", you describe the people who disagree with you as confused and ignorant, who need to be educated with more debate.

I have news for you: people can have different ideas about what should be within the limits of free speech and what should not. In fact, different countries have entirely different laws regarding what is protected as free speech and what is not.

Let's consider the harassment example that you brought up: in principle I agree with you that people should not be allowed to harass each other. However, when you can quell unwanted speech by labeling it "harassment", you create an incentive for people to label more and more speech as harassment. We see this issue in practice all the time. In many places, stating facts such as "men and women have biological differences" is now considered harassment and can lead to losing your job.

[throwaway894345]

You've missed the point. Free-speech is widely understood to exclude threats and harassment, but even if it were only a niche definition used by free-speech proponents the pro-cancel-culture argument would still be nonsense because it claims that the pro-free-speech argument is inconsistent and self-refuting based on a definition of 'free-speech' that includes threats and harassment. Anyone who makes this argument plainly doesn't understand the free-speech argument.

[baobabKoodaa]

No, the "free-speech proponents" do not adhere to your specific definition of what should be considered free speech. The kind of speech which is often labelled "harassment" by its opponents is often labelled as "free speech" by its proponents.

[throwaway894345]

> The kind of speech which is often labelled "harassment" by its opponents is often labelled as "free speech" by its proponents.

If they are doing this, then they are contradicting themselves, but in all of the debates to which I've been a party, the free speech position has always held that coercive behavior (threats and harassment including quid pro quo harassment) are out of bounds of free speech. Once in a while you'll have a few people indulging in a little schadenfreude when a cancel-culture proponent is themselves canceled, and sometimes this stretches so far as to legitimize their canceling--rationalizing the canceling certainly goes too far and conflicts with free-speech ideals and schadenfreude while understandable is probably still not helpful.

[baobabKoodaa]

> If they are doing this, then they are contradicting themselves

Not sure I follow anymore. Who is contradicting themselves, and how?

[throwaway894345]

If as you claim, free-speech proponents are arguing that coercive behavior (harassment, threats, etc) are "free speech", then they are contradicting themselves. However, I dispute that this is a general phenomenon, even if there are a few individual free-speech proponents here or there who do contradict themselves in this way. For the most part, free speech proponents are consistent in arguing that threats and harassment are not free speech and should not be treated as such.

[shadowgovt]

Definitions are a little murky. "Cancel culture" also isn't threats and harassment---it's deplatforming. It's using freedom of association to deny guilt by proxy for spreading someone else's lies, threats, and harassments.

[throwaway894345]

Cancel culture is very often concerted petitioning of someone's employer into terminating someone's employment (harassment) or the threat of the same (recall the Hispanic utility company employee who was terminated for making the 'ok' sign inadvertently or the data scientist who was terminated for Tweeting a prominent black academic's research on the efficacy of nonviolent protests or the journalist who was harassed by coworkers and nearly terminated for interviewing a black man who expressed concern about crime in his neighborhood). It's also frequently walking into a venue and disrupting the speaker such that their message can't reach the crowd. It may also look like forming a dangerous mob outside of a venue such that the venue can't cover the security costs for hosting a speaker.

[shadowgovt]

If petitioning your employer to fire you for something you said works, maybe you said something that your employer would fire you over?

That's, again, not harassment and threats, it's your employer using freedom of association to deny guilt by proxy for spreading someone else's lies, threats, and harassments.

[jonahx]

> If petitioning your employer to fire you for something you said works, maybe you said something that your employer would fire you over?

Possibly, but there is another possibility which also occurs with alarming frequency:

The employer, feeling bullied and afraid of bad press, demonstrations, etc, makes a calculated risk vs reward decision: Is keeping this employee worth the (possibly existential) risk to my business?

That is, the employer may personally have zero problem with what you said, but fire you anyway because "it's just not worth it." The decision to fire is the result of both cowardice by the employer and coercion by the petitioners, even if that coercion is not an explicit threat.

[shadowgovt]

If an employer fears bad press, perhaps it's because the thing their employee did is unpopular and their business is built on public perception?

I mean, we can keep digging, but at the end of the day the story keeps resolving to "Someone said something people didn't like and there are consequences." Technology has made it easier, by dint of lowering the cost of investigation of a person, to apply those consequences; it hasn't changed the rules under which society has operated in general. We block those consequences in terms of government intervention; we've never back-stopped them in terms of private intervention outside of some very, very specific class constraints.

If we want to discuss whether holocaust denial should be a protected class constraint, that would fit the existing (US) mold for constraint of reaction to speech by private citizens, but good luck finding popular support for holocaust denial protection.

As the comic says, defending a position by citing free speech says that the most compelling virtue of your words is that they're not literally illegal to say.

[jonahx]

> If an employer fears bad press, perhaps it's because the thing their employee did is unpopular and their business is built on public perception?

> I mean, we can keep digging, but at the end of the day the story keeps resolving to "Someone said something people didn't like and there are consequences."

I see your argument here, in theory. Two things make me uneasy with it: lack of perfect information; and the power of disinformation.

That is, "unpopular" and "someone said something people didn't like" can't be taken for granted. A small vocal minority, especially one skilled with social media, can make something appear more unpopular than it actually is. And few people are equipped to gauge what the reality is (accurate polling, eg, can be problematic even for those with large resources, let alone a small business owner).

It is easy, then, to force the employer to make a decision about a risk they cannot gauge accurately, and which is made to appear much larger than they would view it if they knew the true average opinions of their customers. Couple this with most people's natural risk aversion, and you have a genuine problem that you can't write off as "well, employers are just finally being forced to respond to the will of the people."

[hn_throwaway_99]

I mean, I'm kind of surprised after this back-and-forth that it isn't as clear cut as you seem to think it is. I mean, I've seen both of you make pretty reasoned arguments, and the fact that you still disagree I would at least think proves the point that people who disagree with your definition of free speech (or, rather, your definition of "cancel culture" and your definition of "harassment and threats") are not crazy lunatics.

I mean, let's be honest: getting someone blackballed from gainful employment sure seems like harassment for any reasonable definition of the term. You just seem to believe that there are sometimes good reasons for that to occur.

[throwaway894345]

> recall the Hispanic utility company employee who was terminated for making the 'ok' sign inadvertently or the data scientist who was terminated for Tweeting a prominent black academic's research on the efficacy of nonviolent protests or the journalist who was harassed by coworkers and nearly terminated for interviewing a black man who expressed concern about crime in his neighborhood

Which of these are things an employer would reasonably fire an employee over? I don't think any reasonable person would believe that these people would have been fired if it weren't for the concerted canceling. Otherwise why would people bother petitioning the employer if the employer would have fired them anyway?

Moreover, do cancel-culture proponents really want to cement the precedent that employment is just an ordinary association, and that anyone's employment (and thus livelihood and health insurance) can be terminated on the whims of their employer? Would they feel comfortable allowing a Trump-voting employer to casually part ways with an employee upon finding out they support Biden? Bear in mind that you and I and those we know are probably much more likely to be in high-demand tech positions than the median American.

[shadowgovt]

> do cancel-culture proponents really want to cement the precedent that employment is just an ordinary association, and that anyone's employment (and thus livelihood and health insurance) can be terminated on the whims of their employer?

If we're talking about the US, that's already extremely firmly cemented outside of specific union protections (I haven't heard about unions going to bat for employees getting called out; I'd be interested to see if it's happening).

It's a major issue with the way American employment works, but is somewhat orthogonal to the question of calling out people for bad behavior. People can lose their health insurance if their employer doesn't like their haircut also; the root issue is that health insurance ought not be tied to employment.

> Would they feel comfortable allowing a Trump-voting employer to casually part ways with an employee upon finding out they support Biden?

That happens all the time. So does employers supporting employees' support of a political candidate.

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/08/18/miles-taylor-former-trump-st...

Politicization of labor isn't new. My relatives who are union are required to spend off-job time working a phone bank for a few hours every election cycle in support of the candidate the union is backing; it's part of their union agreement.

[throwaway894345]

> If we're talking about the US, that's already extremely firmly cemented outside of specific union protections (I haven't heard about unions going to bat for employees getting called out; I'd be interested to see if it's happening).

It's not firmly cemented, it's a common law, but it's well within the realm of possibility that Congress would pass a bill that strengthens employment protections. This is something the US has gone back and forth on for a long time; why do you assume it's fixed (i.e. "cemented") now? And if it's not cemented, why would you want to lean into that precedent?

> but is somewhat orthogonal to the question of calling out people for bad behavior.

How can you make the argument that it's "just employers' exercising their freedom-of-association rights" and then argue that freedom of association is orthogonal? Anyway, we're not talking about them exercising their freedom of association rights, we're talking about coercing employers into terminating employees who fail to toe the party line.

> That happens all the time. So does employers supporting employees' support of a political candidate.

Right, but I'm guessing you would argue that this is immoral and harmful behavior--if so, why would you advocate for those who would emulate it (note that canceling is even worse, because it's not just an employer parting ways with a heretical employee, but a mob pressuring an employer to part ways with said heretical employee)?

> Politicization of labor isn't new. My relatives who are union are required to spend off-job time working a phone bank for a few hours every election cycle in support of the candidate the union is backing; it's part of their union agreement.

Why would they do this if the status quo was already "extremely firmly cemented"?

[remarkEon]

"Well they probably did something to deserve getting fired" is certainly a take. I'd ask though, would these companies still fire you if there wasn't a mob, social media or otherwise, causing a ruckus?

[shadowgovt]

That's a little irrelevant; if someone wasn't complaining, it's likely one's boss wouldn't know.

But that doesn't imply it's the mob's fault; it's up to the person who said the things to not say things their employer would fire them for.

[throwaway894345]

The point is the employer wouldn't fire them apart from the mob's pressure. Moreover, mobs are famously fickle and they're happy to descend upon anyone, guilty or not (even irrespective of whether or not today's target was part of the mob yesterday). I really hope we can agree that mob rule is strictly worse than rule of law.

[UncleMeat]

> I still regularly encounter educated people who can't tell the difference between free speech and threats, harassment, etc.

That's not what is happening. What is happening is that you and that person disagree on what a threat is.

[throwaway894345]

If cancel culture doesn’t depend on implicit threats of career repercussions, then no one should object when we pass laws to protect employees from this kind of mob-based termination. Of course, in this substantial thread, I don’t think anyone has disputed that CC is about threats and harassment and at least one CC proponent has advocated against employment protections. This is consistent with my observations in other HN and Twitter threads, but I’d be happy to be wrongness provided we protect employees from this kind of mobbing.

[UncleMeat]

I'd love it if free speech advocates were uniform in their attack on "cancel culture".

I have two friends, each faculty members at top schools, who have been personally attacked on Fox News and called enemies of America. This has led to hundreds of people sending them death threats via email and constant calls to their department chairs demanding their firing. Not a peep from organizations like FIRE.

And why is sending an email to somebody's boss saying that they are an asshole and should be fired fundamentally worse than posting on social media about how so-and-so is a secret jew who works for the new world order and literally sacrifices babies to satan?

[throwaway894345]

> I'd love it if free speech advocates were uniform in their attack on "cancel culture". I have two friends, each faculty members at top schools, who have been personally attacked on Fox News and called enemies of America. This has led to hundreds of people sending them death threats via email and constant calls to their department chairs demanding their firing. Not a peep from organizations like FIRE.

FIRE focuses on the exercise of free speech in education, so if your friends weren't fired or reprimanded for exercising their rights, FIRE probably won't weigh in. Doubly so if no one writes to FIRE on their behalf asking them to cover the case. Ultimately, FIRE can't cover every case (they're a nonprofit), so it might also just be bad luck that your friends' case wasn't selected. Hard to say. It certainly could be that FIRE is discriminating against your friends' for the content of their speech, but FIRE and Fox News are rarely aligned (indeed, FIRE got its start defending academia against conservative illiberalism).

> And why is sending an email to somebody's boss saying that they are an asshole and should be fired fundamentally worse than posting on social media about how so-and-so is a secret jew who works for the new world order and literally sacrifices babies to satan?

No one is making this argument.

[drivingmenuts]

Distinguishing between free speech and harassment requires discernment, which is what a lot of modern people are either not trained to do, don’t have time to do, are too lazy to do, or have been brainwashed against. More and more, we demand bright lines in a society increasingly filled with gray areas because we charge ahead without consideration.

It’s never been easy and current social pressures make it even harder to do.

[throwaway894345]

This is why we should craft a system that doesn't depend on discerning between free speech and harassment. If we strengthen employment protections, then we don't have to litigate whether "it would be unfortunate if you were fired for this tweet..." was a thinly veiled threat or simply free speech--the employee can rest assured knowing that their livelihood, health care, etc is secure and they can freely advocate for their political beliefs.

[openasocket]

I'll be honest I don't understand your usage of the term "free speech" here. The way I define that term is that it's a political concept expressing the desire for people to be allowed to express themselves however they want to the largest extent possible/ethical. An example of law embodying free speech would be the 1st amendment of the US Constitution.

Based on context, I think you are using free speech to mean "speech that is protected by the doctrine of free speech" in the vocabulary I described above. Though that's ambiguous, because to be able to talk concretely about whether speech is protected or not you would need to say what it is covered under. So do you mean speech that is protected under the 1st Amendment, or some other law?

Presuming you mean the 1st amendment, it isn't necessarily true that threats and harassment are not protected, depending on the specifics.

[throwaway894345]

No worries. The 1st amendment is a legal right and protection from violation by the government. Free speech ideals go further and are generally the belief that problems are best overcome by more speech--if someone has an abhorrent idea, let them express it so others can refute it and let the audience make up its own mind. Free speech proponents would argue that censoring the idea will look bad to those in the audience who haven't made up their minds, and those undecided people in their curiosity will still learn about the unsavory ideas without the guidance of refutation. Free speech is about persuasion and not coercion, so while you could get away with it, "if you say $x, I will get all of my friends to call your employer and demand your termination" (threatening someone with harassment) is not considered to be "free speech" (nor is it "free speech" to carry out the threat).

To distinguish between this definition and the first-amendment definition, I usually refer to this as "free speech ideals".

[openasocket]

OK, I think I'm following. Your notion of free speech ideals isn't bound to a specific law like the 1st amendment and is more abstract. (I'll note that it sounds like your notion of free speech here actually seems to cover less speech than the 1st amendment, since you're explicitly excluding harassment and threats which the 1st amendment may cover. Of course, that's determining what is legal and illegal while free speech ideals are more abstract, so that's kind of an apples-and-oranges comparison). And you object to Counter Culture, which you're defining as coercive actions against those who hold abhorrent or objectionable views. And you propose an alternative, which we could call Refutation Culture, where you instead seek to open up a sort of dialogue to prove those views wrong or immoral.

I have a couple of follow-ups. You reject using Cancel Culture to silence those expressing abhorrent ideas. But what if someone isn't expressing a political view or ideology, but is instead performing bad actions? Like using racial slurs and insulting minorities, or shouting sexual harassment at women walking down the street? As you mentioned, threats and harassment aren't protected under the banner of free speech ideals. And, depending on the circumstances, those actions may be protected under the 1st Amendment, so are not illegal. Do you object to using Cancel Culture against those who are performing threats and harassment? If not, do you have an alternative recommendation? Because I'm not sure how Refutation Culture would apply in such a situation, there's no idea being put forward to argue against. As a follow up, what about abhorrent views being put into practice, such as the CEO of a company instituting racial segregation in their stores?

Secondly, where do you draw the line between Cancel Culture and general acts of protest? If someone in a position of power publicly expresses abhorrent views, and under Refutation Culture we should voice an alternative viewpoint, can that take the form of a protest? If we march around that person's office holding picket signs refuting their viewpoint, would that be considered coercive?

[throwaway894345]

> I'll note that it sounds like your notion of free speech here actually seems to cover less speech than the 1st amendment, since you're explicitly excluding harassment and threats which the 1st amendment may cover. Of course, that's determining what is legal and illegal while free speech ideals are more abstract, so that's kind of an apples-and-oranges comparison)

Right, "free-speech" is a subset of "speech", and it aspires to optimize for the volume of free speech, which is to say that as long as people are free to threaten and harass, others will feel uncomfortable expressing their views. Of course, if those in power agree with you, the intolerant person will say "all is well", but the problems are that (1) sometimes we are wrong and (2) sometimes the person in power isn't going to agree with us and we find ourselves on the wrong end of our own speech-restricting precedents. Those of use who have lived in liberal democracies most of our lives may find it hard to believe that an illiberalism with which we disagree could ever come to rule, and so we take free speech for granted.

> You reject using Cancel Culture to silence those expressing abhorrent ideas. But what if someone isn't expressing a political view or ideology, but is instead performing bad actions? Like using racial slurs and insulting minorities, or shouting sexual harassment at women walking down the street?

As previously mentioned, harassment (sexual or targeted racial slurs) are already harassment. Note that "I think $race is inferior" isn't an abhorrent idea that falls within the realm of free speech, but "Get out of our neighborhood, you $slur" is harassment.

> As you mentioned, threats and harassment aren't protected under the banner of free speech ideals. And, depending on the circumstances, those actions may be protected under the 1st Amendment, so are not illegal. Do you object to using Cancel Culture against those who are performing threats and harassment?

Yes, I object. We should criticize the cancel culture movement; fighting cancel culture with cancel culture is self defeating. In general, I would advocate for legal protections that would neuter cancel culture (and provide a host of additional social benefits), such as decoupling health insurance from employment and strengthening employment protections. In many cases, harassment is already illegal, but proving harassment is difficult and this difficulty is exactly what cancel culture thrives on, so we need better tools--if an employer has to pay an expensive severance, they'll be less willing to cede to a mob. We could also prohibit them from terminating employees on the basis of their free speech altogether (provided of course that the "speech" in question isn't the employee representing the company in an official capacity). I'm not sure exactly which of these policies would be the most effective, but I'm confident that there's a lot of opportunity.

> As a follow up, what about abhorrent views being put into practice, such as the CEO of a company instituting racial segregation in their stores?

This is already illegal, and free speech ideals are perfectly consistent with the laws that condemn this behavior (instituting racial segregation isn't speech of any kind).

> If someone in a position of power publicly expresses abhorrent views, and under Refutation Culture we should voice an alternative viewpoint, can that take the form of a protest? If we march around that person's office holding picket signs refuting their viewpoint, would that be considered coercive?

I'm not sure what "Refutation Culture" is, but if you're talking about free speech ideals, then yes, it's perfectly fine to protest as long as your protest isn't harassing or threatening. There's nothing inherently coercive about expressing one's perspective; it's when there's a threat (either explicit or implicit) or when it's outright harassment (you're petitioning a politician in their workplace--this is healthy democratic behavior as long as the protests and messaging are peaceful in nature; petitioning someone's home or shouting death/rape threats constitute harassment IMO).