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by wodenokoto 1386 days ago
There’s protecting free speech and there’s enabling harassment.

Come on. Shouting “fire!” In a crowded room is not free speech and no company in their right mind should support that

3 comments

>Come on. Shouting “fire!” In a crowded room is not free speech and no company in their right mind should support that

Actually, shouting "fire!" in a crowded theater IS explicitly free speech in America, and in fact, the idea that it's not is a layman's mistake (or a wives tale if you prefer) that is corrected in basically freshman legal classes.

In modern legal discussion, the idea of "fire in a theater!" is basically an immediate identifier that you are not educated in this part of the law at all and your opinion is low quality.

Not trying to insult you here, I too have used this very analogy on the internet in the past, just laying out what exactly others see when they see what you wrote.

>Shouting “fire!” In a crowded room is not free speech

stop using this dumb analogy. it was invented to justify prosecuting people for speaking out against the draft, and it was later denounced by the very person who coined it.

in this case it's more like: a random person who never went to the theatre before shouted fire in the theatre, the person was summarily booted from the premises and banned by the theatre staff. then later on the police come by and shut down the theatre because they hosted fire-shouters.

It's incredible how this perception persists completely devoid of nuance or understanding.