[slg]

Here are 6 solid examples of "buts" we have on freedom of speech in the US.

1. You can't publish child porn.

2. You can't publish copyrighted work. [EDIT: For which you don't have the rights. I thought that was sufficiently implied.]

3. You can't defame another person.

4. You can't threaten someone.

5. You can't use your speech to invade someone's privacy.

6. You can't use obscenity freely.

And this is just freedoms of speech and isn't even including the whole controversial money is equal to speech opinion.

Freedoms and rights are rarely binary. There is often a spectrum and there are often complexities regarding where your rights end and mine begin. All of the above (with maybe the exception of number 6) involve one person using a right to take away someone else's rights. As a society, we have decided to side with that other person in these cases.

[djsumdog]

1-> is a limitation on the freedom of speech. Speech is not absolute, and the US has limits set by the courts. This is a reasonable one and it's very narrowly limited. The United States and Japan are probably the two best countries when it comes to defending freedom of speech. Keep in mind, China has freedom of speech in their constitution, so the law doesn't have much by itself.

2-> This is a civil violation. The FBI poster before movies says it's criminal, but it's very rarely persued as such (unless you're Kim Dotcom).

3-> Civil, not criminal

4-> Reasonable limit to speech and it's specific. You have to threaten specific harm to a specific person (or group in a specific time frame). There's a lot of very complex case law here, test for 'call to action' ... a lot of it going back to the Red Scare

5-> Like publishing Trump's tax returns? That's a federal crime by the way.

6-> Obscenity has some very specific and narrow definitions (see #1). Although people like to throw around the "I'll know it when I see it," there are certain tests to determine obscenity in the US.

[pnw_hazor]

In the US, there is no prior restraint that prevents one from doing the things in your list.

If expressions are deemed unlawful after-the-fact and via due process, the speaker may be punished.

It is anti-freedom to bar expression w/o adjudication or due process. E.g., alleged threats or alleged defamation are protected speech until a court determines them to be unprotected. Emergency injunctions or the like may be temporarily enforced if the court feels it is likely that the expression in controversy will be found to be unprotected speech.

Also, courts can issue narrow and temporary gag orders but they are limited and specifically targeted for reasons unrelated to the viewpoint of the speech.

[cambalache]

1. You are not giving up any freedom for not being able to sexually abuse children. Jesus, dont be obtuse just to gain fake Internet points. When I talk about Freedom are things inherent to the dignity of human condition, usually written in documents like the universal declaration of human rights or the constitution.

2. You can, people do it all the time. You cannot publish it if you dont own the rights same way you cannot enter my house if you are not invited. What supposed freedom you are renouncing to?

3. Same as 2

4. Same as 2

5. I dont have any idea what is that supposed to mean.

6. In TV, I supposed you are not, at your home oh yes you can. In the street unless you are being a prick that is rarely if ever enforced.

Human freedom does not mean,"I will treat the universe like my personal minecraft game" it means, "These rights are universally agreed to be indispensable for the human condition and we will agree to gran them universally"

[slg]

1. The prohibition extends beyond cases of sexual abuse. Computer generated child porn without any actual victim is still illegal.

2, 3, 4 - I don't know how "people do it all the time" is supposed to be a defense. People jaywalk all the time too. It doesn't invalidate the law. The fact is these forms of speech are illegal and people get in trouble for them all the time.

5. People have a right to privacy and you can't use your freedom of speech to infringe on that. For example, I can't publish photos of you that I captured from a camera in a public restroom.

6. Yes, you are right this doesn't apply in your home. However it does apply in several public spheres. In most of this country, women can't even take off their shirt in public. You are right that obscenity laws aren't universally enforced, but this is a common charge levied against undesirables.

>Human freedom does not mean,"I will treat the universe like my personal minecraft game" it means, "These rights are universally agreed to be indispensable for the human condition and we will agree to gran them universally"

But these examples prove we don't "grant them universally". We grant them conditionally as long as you don't use them to interfere with the rights of others.

[betwixthewires]

FYI for point 1 this is not true, in the US, pornographic images are only restricted when they document someone being abused, drawing, animation, and even role play are legal.

When talking about freedom of speech, we use the US as a gold standard simply because we aren't talking about what is legal, we are talking about what should be legal, and the US has the least restrictions on speech anywhere in the world (my above paragraph serves as an example of this).

Otherwise I'm just enjoying this back and forth, you're both making coherent points and it is a productive discussion.

[waterhouse]

> in the US, pornographic images are only restricted when they document someone being abused

I don't think this is true. Since "child" means anyone under 18, "child porn" therefore includes teenagers sexting their boy/girlfriends; some of those relationships could be called abusive, but surely many could not be, unless you think a teenager taking pictures of him/herself is inherently (self-)abusive. But I'm sure no internet content moderation policy, nor likely any police raid, would look into the background of a nude picture of a 14-year-old and determine that no abuse was involved and therefore the picture is permissible.

See https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22144707/ . "The cases involved "youth-produced sexual images" that constituted child pornography under relevant statutes according to respondents. ... US law enforcement agencies handled an estimated 3477 cases of youth-produced sexual images during 2008 and 2009 ... Two-thirds of the cases involved an "aggravating" circumstance beyond the creation and/or dissemination of a sexual image. In these aggravated cases, either an adult was involved (36% of cases) or a minor engaged in malicious, non-consensual, or abusive behavior (31% of cases). An arrest occurred in 62% of cases with an adult involved, in 36% of the aggravated youth-only cases, and in 18% of the "experimental" cases (youth-only and no aggravating elements)."

[betwixthewires]

So the idea is that sexual activity with minors is coercive, and that trading in pornography is sexually exploitative and a minor cannot consent to be exploited. I would disagree with that on principle, however if it were to be established as precedent that it is not it would be a huge loophole for people actually exploiting people coercively, and I'm not entirely sure how to square that myself.

[waterhouse]

Er, you say sexual activity, but I was talking about sexting, which generally means partly or fully nude pictures of oneself—taken by oneself, alone—which don't depict sexual activity (except possibly masturbation). Those pictures will generally be classified as pornography—as my link said, they "constituted child pornography under relevant statutes according to respondents [law enforcement agencies]"—and producing them is an offense for which one can be and sometimes is arrested, and it is up to the police to decide not to enforce it (similar to speeding).

Then, if, say, someone still has naked pictures from age 15 (of herself in her bedroom alone) when she turns 18, and decides to start selling her own pictures online (or even posting them for free), and some guy buys them, and at some point the guy gets raided and the police find those pictures... I'm pretty sure the guy will get charged for possession of child pornography based on those pictures (assuming one can tell by looking that the girl was 15), and "no one abused this girl in the process" will not be accepted as a valid defense in court.

[slg]

>FYI for point 1 this is not true, in the US, pornographic images are only restricted when they document someone being abused, drawing, animation, and even role play are legal.

The analysis I have seen in the past disagrees with this, but honestly I am not looking to plug the necessary keywords into a search engine to find a source. I believe the specific example was regarding deepfaking completely fake computer generated children's faces onto adult porn.

[cambalache]

1. That depends on the legislation of every country and it is a hotly debated topic, it is not black and white.

2,3,4. You misunderstood the point. I said people publish copyrighted material all the time (if they have the rights to it). Not at all what you are saying here.

5. You have no right to privacy in any public space. That's why paparazzi exists. In most civilised countries a public bathroom gives you total privacy so that is not even an issue.

> But these examples prove we don't "grant them universally". We grant them conditionally as long as you don't use them to interfere with the rights of others.

You are mistaken. Those are orthogonal concepts, universally just means: to everybody. And yes we grant them conditionally, with the unstated assumption you lose them temporarily if your actions stop other people rights. It certainly not the case of these youtube channels, they are not restricting anybody's freedom.

[slg]

1. I'm not the one suggesting there are universal truths here. You are the one who established freedoms as binary. Something being "hotly debated" and "not black and white" is a point in support of my argument.

2, 3, 4. I thought not owning the rights was implied by my comment. I edited that to make it more specific. I don't know how potential for people owning a copyright and publishing their own works applies to issues 3 and 4.

5. You do have certain expectations of privacy even while in public. Laws against upskirt photos are one example.

>And yes we grant them conditionally, with the unstated assumption you lose them temporarily if your actions stop other people rights.

So do you know agree that there are "buts" on freedom?

> It certainly not the case of these youtube channels, they are not restricting anybody's freedom.

I have the right to vote and have my vote counted. These Youtube videos are trying to invalidate my vote from being counted.

[cambalache]

> I'm not the one suggesting there are universal truths here.

I never talked about truth, I talked about freedoms. I think you should revise your definition of "universal" it seems you dont understand it. The whole idea of my original point is that you cannot say OK this is an universal(for everybody) agreed upon freedom but.... No but here, restricting freedom to an specific subset of the population who has not commited a crime is a big no-no. I mean, did you actually read the post, it's bone chilling:

> Limiting the reach of borderline content and prominently surfacing authoritative information are important ways we protect people from problematic content that doesn’t violate our Community Guidelines.

They acknowledge the content doesnt violate any community guideline(even less any law) and yet they want to "protect" us from it. Sorry, I will be on the other side every single time. If that means to be next to Alex Jones, so be it.

Youtube says: " For example, while problematic misinformation represents a fraction of 1% of what's watched on YouTube in the U.S., we know we can bring that number down even more. " This is what I oppose to, to selectively curtailing universal rights. I dont care about any pedantic discussion on semantics, I will gift you them all.

> Laws against upskirt photos are one example.

Same case with fictional animated child pornography, this is not a settled issue(https://www.hindustantimes.com/world/top-us-court-rules-upsk.... Let me repeat that the point is not that. You could still argue for years what it is the best course of action. What you cannot do is selectively enforce those rights or prohibitions against certain sets of the population.That is the problem, that is the violation of the universality of a right, Not the complexity of a legislation.

> So do you know agree that there are "buts" on freedom?

If you call freedom do whatever the hell you want , yes there are buts. If you say freedom as universally granted rights, "But" let's stop this group of having them. There is no valid buts, sorry. I wont never ever be on favor of censoring people who has not commited any violation by expressing their points.

> I have the right to vote and have my vote counted. These Youtube videos are trying to invalidate my vote from being counted.

This a pretty weird, and frankly out of character for you, argument. Some loonies doubting the election, asking for recall or even a repeat are not violating your right at all. I am dumbfounded for such a jump of logic here anyway. Any decision about the election will be taken by the authorities not random youtubers. Go search in youtube "Trump should be impeached, jailed,judged" you will find thousands of videos, are those videos invalidating the votes of the people who vote for Trump. Because from my POV either your vote is safe and you have nothing to worry about or your vote is discarded and you will have to take that with the authorities, not Johnie P Schmuck in youtube, who ironically has many more things in common with you and me than with Larry Page or Mark Zuckerberg.

[slg]

Universal has multiple meanings. I think freedoms are universal in that they apply to all people. I don't think they are universal in that they would apply in every situation. I have given you plenty of examples of situations in which people can be reasonably deprived of freedom of speech.

Governments get their power from the people. That is the foundation of the US political thinking. The larger the percentage of the population that supports overturning this election, the more pressure elected officials will feel to comply. Therefore allowing this misinformation to spread increases the odds that my right to vote will be infringed. Is it an immediate and direct relationship like in some of the other examples we have discussed? Obviously not. However there is a clear causal line from someone advocating that my rights be taken away to the potential of my rights actually be taken away.

[gzer0]

Posting this purely because of the hypocrisy displayed by the poster, Cambalache. Your arguments attempt (very poorly) to appeal to ethos, are littered with false equivocations, and jump to illogical, impossible conclusions based on flawed logic defined earlier in your "argument".

> You cannot publish it if you don't own the rights

Who gave YOU the right to take away MY ability to publish anything? Stay consistent with your arguments, at least.

> same way you cannot enter my house if you are not invited

Who gave YOU the right to take away MY right and freedom to enter a place?

----

Often times, when you find someone making such absurd claims, you must argue back with the same nonsense logic they use otherwise there will be no end

Would love to hear your answers to the above points I made please and thanks.

[etchalon]

Your post amounts to asking "Who gave YOU the right to tell ME I can't fire my GUN wherever I want".

There are no good answers to a point that absurd.

[gzer0]

> Your post amounts to asking "Who gave YOU the right to tell ME I can't fire my GUN wherever I want". There are no good answers to a point that absurd.

> Often times, when you find someone making such absurd claims, you must argue back with the same nonsense logic they use otherwise there will be no end

---

Thanks for proving my point!

[cambalache]

Sorry I got confused. I have no idea what you think "ethos" means. From there my mind wandered. Peace!

[gzer0]

> Often times, when you find someone making such absurd claims, you must argue back with the same nonsense logic they use otherwise there will be no end

amazing! my technique works, as per usual. :) thanks for proving my point.

[Sohcahtoa82]

> 2. You can, people do it all the time. You cannot publish it if you dont own the rights same way you cannot enter my house if you are not invited. What supposed freedom you are renouncing to?

I think you know exactly what is meant. You even say it in the second sentence of your comment.

Free speech does not allow copyright infringement. Yes, "people do it all the time". That doesn't mean it's allowed.

[cambalache]

> Yes, "people do it all the time". That doesn't mean it's allowed.

People does it all the time. Disney does it, any editorial house does it. If you have the rights you can publish the material. Same as you have the right to enter your house. Not mine, yours.

[Sohcahtoa82]

When the other commenter said:

"You can't publish copyrighted work."

I thought it was very obviously implied that they meant "You can't publish copyrighted work that you don't have distribution rights to."

I find it hard to believe that you didn't actually know this and took a strong stance against an incorrect understanding of the comment because you want to be pedantic.

[mjrpes]

How about "shouting fire in a crowded theater"?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shouting_fire_in_a_crowded_the...

Brandenburg v. Ohio in 1969 limited the scope of banned speech to that which would be directed to and likely to incite imminent lawless action (e.g. a riot). This seems reasonable.

Consider a hypothetical with the current election and baseless claims of fraud. A month from now as Biden is sworn in, the drumbeat of fraud continues. There are now collectives of militia groups who claim they cannot "stand by" anymore and the election must be overturned or they will secede from the union. Trump decamps to Mar-a-lago and continues to claim he won. Then one day, local county governments in northern Texas band together and take the side of the militias, saying they will not recognize the current federal government until Trump is declared the winner. This action spreads like wild fire and triggers the same revolt in most rural areas of the country. Trump incites them and declares himself leader in exile. Most red county governments back the militias and declare they will not recognize the current government, as they have no choice at this point. We are now at civil war.

Is this scenario likely to happen? In the current state if disinformation and cult-like following of Trump supporters, I honestly think it is. Look at how Kyle Rittenhouse is now a hero of the right.

So at what point does disinformation reach the level of "imminent lawless action" and should not be protected speech? The government is weak and severely limited here. Any action against disinformation will immediately back fire. It will not happen.

But YouTube as a private company can. And I think they should. It is fair that they see this disinformation campaign as getting very close to "shouting fire in a crowded theater" and are acting on this threat.