[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.

[baobabKoodaa]

> If as you claim, free-speech proponents are arguing that coercive behavior (harassment, threats, etc) are "free speech", then they are contradicting themselves.

Once again: where is the contradiction? For example, I might say "Christianity is causing a lot of suffering and death". I think that statements like that are "free speech" and not "harassment", but a fundamental Christian person who hears this statement may think that expressing this opinion constitutes harassment. So you have a statement, and two people disagree whether it is free speech. You think there's a contradiction somewhere in there. Well, where is it?

[throwaway894345]

That statement isn’t harassment (however awful it may be). If you follow Christian groups around protesting them at their events and so on then perhaps that constitutes harassment, but merely expressing a negative opinion of something is plainly free speech and not harassment.

> You think there's a contradiction somewhere in there.

You asserted the contradiction, not me. I merely confirmed your observation that a free-speech proponent who alleged that harassment was free speech would be contradicting himself because by definition harassment is not free speech.

[baobabKoodaa]

> merely expressing a negative opinion of something is plainly free speech and not harassment.

Again, this is merely your opinion, and it does not reflect the opinion of everyone else. Another person will see that statement and believe it is harassment and not free speech.

> You asserted the contradiction, not me. I merely confirmed your observation that a free-speech proponent who alleged that harassment was free speech would be contradicting himself because by definition harassment is not free speech.

No, this is false. You asserted the contradiction and you still have not demonstrated that it exists. If you look up this chain of comments to find the first mention of "contradiction", that mention was made by you (not me!) as a response to my comment where I said:

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

...to this comment you responded:

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

Notice that I never said "free-speech proponent alleges harassment is free speech". The example I gave was very clear that the label "harassment" is not given by the speaker - it is given by an observer. You seem to hold on to this strawman that you constructed where the speaker labels their own speech as harassment and free speech simultaneously. This does not really occur in practice. What occurs in practice is that the speaker does not label their own speech as harassment, the label is given by other people who are offended and want to silence the speaker . In some instances we might agree with speaker, in other instances we might disagree with them. But in any case, the speaker's internal position is not contradictory; they don't believe that their speech constitutes harassment.

[throwaway894345]

> Again, this is merely your opinion, and it does not reflect the opinion of everyone else. Another person will see that statement and believe it is harassment and not free speech.

You are mistaken. Criticism is never harassment and it’s always free speech by definition. Someone might have their feelings hurt by criticism and they might even believe it to be harassment, but they’d be mistaken. The president would prefer the media not to criticize him so much and I’m sure he believes they harass him, but never the less, he is mistaken.

> No, this is false. You asserted the contradiction and you still have not demonstrated that it exists.

I interpreted (evidently “misinterpreted) your comment as a contradiction; I wasn’t claiming a contradiction. It seems like your point is instead “some people consider harassment to be free speech” which is fine, but incorrect at least per the widely accepted definition of free speech. You can have your own definition of “2” for example which means “3”, but you don’t get to call others wrong when they say “2+2=4”—they are simply using the conventional definition of “2” and not your personal definition.