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by brent_noorda 1993 days ago
I made a beautiful app called ShoutFireInACrowdedTheater. With one tap it would shout “fire” in a crowded theater. Great interface. Amazing graphics. Voice activated. ADA compliant. But Google and Apple both banned it. Cancel Culture is real!
4 comments
duvenaud 1993 days ago
Theatres do indeed have an app to let someone yell "fire", which is the fire alarm.

It funny to me that the standard example of speech that shouldn't be protected is the only one that's required to be protected by building codes.

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yt-sdb 1992 days ago
I don't see the contradiction or confusion implied by "funny". You cannot yell "fire" in a crowded building when there is no fire. This is why it is a classic example of reasonable limitations to free speech.
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jessaustin 1992 days ago
Please educate yourself:

After Holmes' opinions in the Schenck trilogy, the law of the United States was this: you could be convicted and sentenced to prison under the Espionage Act if you criticized the war, or conscription, in a way that "obstructed" conscription, which might mean as little as convincing people to write and march and petition against it. This is the context of the "fire in a theater" quote that people so love to brandish to justify censorship. [0]

Every time this stupid meme reemerges, it serves only to identify people who have no idea what they're talking about.

[0] https://www.popehat.com/2012/09/19/three-generations-of-a-ha...

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duvenaud 1992 days ago
Sorry, what's the proposed limitation? It's presumably not a rule against saying "fire" at all, since that what fire alarms are for.

I presume you mean that the limitations on speech take the form of punishments after the fact for saying "fire" when there wasn't one. I agree this is sensible.

But I think it's an important point that we can't (and shouldn't, and don't) ban people entirely from shouting "fire" in a crowded theatre, because if they're right, it's important to know.

I think it's worth discussing this more fleshed-out example, because it shows that in order to limit speech without shutting down useful information, you need to have some sort of trusted fact-finding apparatus to punish false alarms, which then become an important locus of power.

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jessaustin 1993 days ago
You should link to the repo so we can sideload it.
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pkulak 1992 days ago
The problem with this analogy is that it has something to do with the first amendment.
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phendrenad2 1993 days ago
Who goes to the theater anymore?
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