[slibhb]

> Freedom of speech is just the easiest way to have plausible deniability when directly or indirectly defending otherwise indefensible positions.

The idea that it's somehow suspicious to be in favor of free speech has got to be one of the worst developments in American politics.

And, for whatever it's worth, every vocal "free speech person" I know doesn't like the current administation. Some people actually just have principles!

[sapphicsnail]

I have yet to see a free speech absolutist express concern about the government and media suppressing Gaza protestors or LGBTQ books being banned or anything else that affects the left. Doesn't seem very principled to me.

[rtpg]

I can't believe I'm going to say this but if you go over to reason.com and look at reporting on the visa stuff, there are a loooot of arguments going on in the comments. We're not even talking free speech absolutionists! Just like "normal"[0] conservatives being like "this is actually kind of messed up what's going on to these visa holders".

Plenty of people happy to carry water for the admin as well. I just don't really have a great view of what people actually think about this issue.

[0]: to be clear, I do not believe there are normal people on that website.

[cavisne]

Glenn greenwald comes to mind.

[Gud]

I wouldn’t call myself an “absolutist” of anything, except perhaps regarding free political speech. Child porn is pretty much where I draw the line, and frankly even that is a fuzzy line.

I absolutely object to suppressing Gaza protests and banning LGBTQ books, or any other books for that matter.

[rockskon]

That's speaks more to your social and news circles more than anything. I see plenty of condemnation of the Trump administration from free speech activists for their actions against Gaza Protestors and LGBTQ book bans.

[kopirgan]

Wasn't it the other way around for way too long and still is in places like UK, Germany?!

[nine_k]

Neither of these countries has a free speech provision in the constitution. To the opposite, both explicitly ban certain kinds of speech.

[gmueckl]

Germany does guarantees free speech in article 5 of its constitution.

[FranzFerdiNaN]

It also states it might be limited by law. So you can’t promote nazism and call it free speech.

[PartiallyTyped]

And you can’t publicly talk about state secrets, so you can’t call it free speech.

[Chingers]

This is not true, article five allows for freedom of opinion, which is very different.

[gmueckl]

That is not true. Although it uses a different word on the surface, it really is the same legal concept.

[fahhem]

Clearly except when it's about Israel

[RickHull]

My understanding is that insults are illegal as well as certain expressions of Naziism.

[YeahThisIsMe]

Can you explain what that's supposed to mean and provide some examples?

[tw04]

The UK and Germany don’t and never have had the 1st amendment.

As for “the other way around” - what I saw the right wing complaining about was “being canceled”. Freedom of speech has never meant freedom from consequences for your actions. A private business is well within their rights to fire you if you’re posting racist or homophonic slurs online.

The only thing the first amendment provides is freedom from the government impeding your speech. Doing things like, you know, threatening jail time for journalists who say things they don’t like. Or, in a functioning US government, pulling funding from colleges because they’ve got students protesting over the current situation in the Middle East.

[kopirgan]

Going by your logic, pulling funds by govt is wrong but students "facing consequences of actions" by getting expelled is ok?

[somewhaturkish]

If it's a private University, that seems consistent.

[raxxorraxor]

Germany does have such laws that stem from its old monarchic honor culture and these laws are currently abused for political purposes. Laws that were in affect through its autocracies and were always abused as well.

Just saying that it might not be the best model.

[tetromino_]

> I have yet to see a free speech absolutist express concern ...

Hi there. You are seeing one right now. Well, seeing the words of one.

I am a free speech absolutist. What this administration is doing is abominable. I have always seen anti-Israeli campus posters as idiots, but Trump's crackdown on them is, imho, unconstitutional and immoral.

[PieTime]

You’re free to support apartheid but I’ve never found slandering your opposition particularly useful. I don’t support any forms of violence, and framing is very important because it leads to peace activists being conflated with war mongering. Israel fascism is at the very heart of why free speech is being banned.

https://youtu.be/9Z1NyTdhZ-U?si=9S4rOI-fQY0Yr0XD

[spwa4]

I hate the implication you're making, especially since reality is exactly opposite. Israel's system cannot reasonably be classified as apartheid ... and Palestine's system cannot reasonably be classified as anything BUT apartheid. You definitely ARE legally segregated according to religion in Palestine, and you are not in Israel.

Exactly the opposite of your claim.

Yes, the current Israeli government is turning authoritarian (though again: not nearly as authoritarian as Palestine's governments), like so many others. That doesn't change reality though.

[try_the_bass]

> You’re free to support apartheid but I’ve never found slandering your opposition particularly useful

You say, as you slander your opposition.

If you proudly proclaim your hypocrisy like this, is it really any surprise that the rest of your moral argument falls flat?

[raxxorraxor]

There is less apartheid in Israel than in every other surrounding country with quite a large margin for that matter.

You use words like fascism while decrying "framing". This is ridiculous.

But no, I don't advocate you getting banned for a stupid opinion. Perhaps that can be the minimal consensus.

[h0l0cube]

> anti-Israeli campus posters as idiots

The problem with free speech absolutism is that it leads to the 'paradox of tolerance'. We are now seeing the fruits of that line of thinking.

> The paradox of tolerance is a philosophical concept suggesting that if a society extends tolerance to those who are intolerant, it risks enabling the eventual dominance of intolerance; thereby undermining the very principle of tolerance.

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

[johnnyanmac]

I don't see the paradox. You can consider some people idiots and find it condemnable for idiots to be kidnapped in vans or have their visas revoked.

If anything it's a slipperly slope logic. These people are idiots -> these people deserve bad things happening. Unfortuntaely, the admin is proving all those fallacies before us.

[h0l0cube]

'Considering some people idiots' is intolerance. Tolerating that kind of intolerance in the name of free speech in the marketplace of ideas or whatever can allow that intolerance to gain traction such that intolerance becomes a dominant mode of thinking, via tolerating people. Is that not the paradox?

[try_the_bass]

> These people are idiots -> these people deserve bad things happening.

These are unfortunately the only circumstances in which I ever see Popper's "paradox" invoked.

[davorak]

> free speech absolutist

An unfortunately overloaded term. 1) free speech absolutist meaning the government should not be censor private citizens speech in any way, 2) or twitter/similar is breaking the law by censoring X speech, 3) or twitter/similar should be considered a defacto public square and therefor the company twitter/similar can not legally censor speech on it, 4) or "I align with Elon Musk who calls himself a free speech absolutist", or etc.

Likely sapphicsnail was talking about the less principled, or not understood by principles by me, variety of people calling themselves free speech absolutist, who seem to dominate, or least be the most vocal, the conversation around "free speech absolutism" in reason years.

[slg]

You're still missing a good portion of the ambiguity of the term. Both "free" and "absolutist" are rather definitive terms with clear meaning. But what is "speech"? Does that count fraud, defamation, threats, or even the distribution of child porn? Almost everyone agrees at least some of that should be restricted. So an "absolutists" either needs to defend that type of harmful speech or debate the meaning of "speech" and once that happens the term has lost all meaning.

[mitthrowaway2]

I'm not a free-speech absolutist but I've met some. Generally, I've only ever encountered discussion of free speech to be in regards to one's rights to voice their beliefs, opinions, and criticisms. That usually will apply to defamation (but with the right of the defamed party to sue, especially if the claims are false). There's probably some division about where threats cross from speech into violence, especially as threats can themselves be used to restrict freedom of speech. Likewise for yelling "fire" in a crowded theatre.

I don't think even free-speech absolutists apply it to a general right to share any arbitrary information, such as copyrighted films, classified war plans, trade secrets, doctor-patient or lawyer-client privileged information, or intimate recordings of people taken without consent (or without ability to consent).

[slg]

>I don't think even free-speech absolutists apply it to a general right to share any arbitrary information, such as... intimate recordings of people taken without consent

Does sharing a non-intimate recording of someone count as speech? Can the government make it illegal for me to share a photo that a government official thinks makes them look ugly? What about a photo of an official committing a crime? What if that photo was taken somewhere private and without their consent? Or what if it was actually an "intimate recordings of people taken without consent", but one of the people involved was the president and they were recorded in a drug fueled fling with a prostitute? Should publishing that be illegal?

How can you define speech so that it can be applied consistently to specific questions like this? Odds are you'll end up with a definition so full of nuances and caveats that the "absolutist" part of the term is rendered meaningless.

[soraminazuki]

This kind of response reinforces the parent's concern. Expressing concern for the erosion of free speech rights doesn't make one a right wing fanatic just because they don't mention every other political issue in the exact same comment.

[spiderfarmer]

The free speech absolutists were always criticized because of their hypocrisy, not because of their ideology. At least the people saying there should be limits to free speech are clear and impartial as to where those limits should be, supported by laws and regulations.

[soraminazuki]

> clear and impartial as to where those limits should be

This is a big claim. The crux of the problem is that it's virtually impossible to set a clear and consistent line. That makes it ripe for abuse by those in power, as we are witnessing right now. I think it's hypocritical to fail to even acknowledge this fact.

[spiderfarmer]

Focus your energy on the clear abuses of power by the current regime, instead of hypotheticals and edge cases in the system you once had.

The US had a great (not perfect!) system. Free speech with reasonable limits, set by laws and regulations. And helped by a certain amount trust in the system.

When power hungry people, who started abusing the system with misinformation campaigns, ran into those laws and regulations, they claimed the system was treating them unfairly. Those people are now in power.

And trust is now at a minimum.

You could blame the past system for not being able to prevent this regime, but that wouldn’t fit your beliefs. I for one, am happy that we have more stringent rules in the EU.

[soraminazuki]

That current regime is using the exact same machinery that you're advocating for to suppress freedoms, and it seems to me that your solution is to make it more ripe for abuse. This doesn't make any sense. And no, we're not talking about "hypotheticals" here when the abuse is happening right before our eyes.

Laws and regulations aren't a magical solution. You have to think about how they can be abused, or they'll be weaponized to achieve the exact opposite of what you intended. This has been abundantly clear for those who have been paying attention. See for example how lawmakers have been repeatedly pushing laws claiming to "protect children" that does nothing of the sort but does everything to erode civil liberties.

[raxxorraxor]

That is not true, people championed others to be removed from all kinds of platforms.

I am not inclined to defend any stupid opinion, but especially on topics like the pandemic people were cheering on others getting banned. There is a political cost to this and that does extend to people having little ground to criticise the current US administration on these grounds.

[eli_gottlieb]

Then you're not looking.

[acidmath]

For books depicting sex acts, banning such books from public elementary and middle school libraries is reasonable. Is it not?

Does there exist any example of an administration (federal or state) successfully prohibiting the private sale of an LGBTQ book?

[spiderfarmer]

Books with rainbows are getting banned under the same policy.

Rainbows!

[acidmath]

Where is this happening? URL?

[navane]

First hit when googling "Books with rainbows are getting banned"

https://www.salon.com/2022/04/15/ohio-school-district-bans-c...

[spiderfarmer]

Guess: Saudi Arabia or the USA?

The fact that you have to ask says it all.

[milesrout]

Nobody is banning books. Removing inappropriate material from school libraries isn't book banning. Have you seen some of the books that are being removed? That books with graphic depictions of aren't appropriate for children is a view perfectly compatible with strong support for freedom of expression.

[sham1]

Okay, but counterpoint: why don't these school libraries also remove for example the Bible, a work known for extremely graphic content, eroticism, calls to kill based on one's tribe and doing stuff like working on the Sabbath. It's also a book explicitly meant for indoctrinating children into a given religion, or actually one of two religions!

These principles of what is good and age-appropriate for children doesn't seem to be applied consistently.

[DontchaKnowit]

Counterpoint, they do. What public elementary school has copies of the bible? Schools are terrified of anything re ligious.

[sham1]

Well apparently at least public school libraries in Utah's Davis County[0]. To their credit, they did actually ban it due to vulgarity and violence, so at least they were principled in that sense, but then the book was brought back due to backlash.

[0]: <https://edition.cnn.com/2023/06/21/us/utah-davis-school-dist...>

[milesrout]

Because it is an historically important work that is necessary to have some understanding of to understand large parts of history. Its purpose also is not indoctrination or titillation.

[spiderfarmer]

Because the bible teaches hypocrisy, a very important skill that will help create future leaders.

[cammikebrown]

They’re literally banning The Handmaid’s Tale. Not good https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/02/margaret-a...

[nine_k]

Quoting the article:

> It’s shunning time in Madison County, Virginia, where the school board recently banished my novel The Handmaid’s Tale from the shelves of the high-school library.

Note: a school library. A student can go to a regular library and check out this book, if they are really interested.

If you want to see what real book banning looks like, read the list: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_books_banned_by_govern...

This involves removing books from public libraries nationwide (not just school libraries of one county), banning of sale, and sometimes criminalizing and prosecuting private possession of the book.

The US is fortunately quite far from such a sorry state.

[kelseyfrog]

Redefining the definition of book banning is not a good look and not a way to win this argument. It's a hole you really don't want to dig.

[nine_k]

The First Amendment specifically speaks about government not limiting free expression. An indeed, school boards are a branch of the government, not a private organization. Their actions may be seen as a real infraction on the First Amendment.

Thank you for the correction.

[milesrout]

Book banning means banning books. It doesn't mean removing books from school libraries. That isn't what it has ever meant. Who is doing the redefining?

[girvo]

> Have you seen some of the books that are being removed?

Yes, and most of them do not fit your description in the slightest.

[more_corn]

There’s a coordinated effort to ban books. Harry Potter has been banned. Parents are provided with the template letters to send and are trained to raise objections to books that don’t fit their religious ideology. I’d provide you with links but you could just google it yourself same as I could. Search for “coordinated effort ban books”

[relatedtitle]

But the Bible's ok...

[kelseyfrog]

When our book says "There she lusted after her lovers, whose genitals were like those of donkeys and whose emission was like that of horses," it's ok. When yours say it, it's not. Simple.

1. https://biblehub.com/ezekiel/23-20.htm

[rsynnott]

Some of these translations, I feel, slightly miss the point.

Or just went totally off the rails in a couple of cases.

[raxxorraxor]

Left political circles did remove books as well. At the time it was mostly argued that the authors are racists or had some form of flaw.

The justification was exactly the same at the time. "It isn't censorship, it is just not recommended anymore". Given, that was/is true for many literary expositions as well.

[croes]

Inappropriate by whom?

Do you have a list of those books so I can check if I see the same kind of inappropriateness?

[milesrout]

Inappropriate according to the school. Schools determine all sorts of things along those lines. They choose what to teach in the first place. Is that in violation of freedom of speech too? School libraries aren't unlimited. They can't contain every possible book. And you wouldn't want them to contain, for example, Playboy magazine or other actual pornographical publications. Schools are obviously allowed to determine what is and isn't appropriate; this is much better, having it decided locally, rather than what, deciding at a national level what is and isn't okay.

[croes]

They could decide "On the Origin of Species" is inappropriate, while the Bible which is full of violence isn't a problem.

[lovich]

> Some people actually just have principles!

Right, but words like `absolutist` mean something really strong that is not achievable in reality, and I don't think you would disagree very much that the majority of self professed free speech absolutists like Musk, do not actually hold anything near such a view.

This is actually due to an attack on the weakness of free speech. The zone is being flooded with shit, as the phrase goes, to the point that words don't mean anything. The moment a term starts having some meaning that people can derive direction from, the propagandists start using the term incorrectly everywhere.

[abeppu]

I think the swerve that makes free speech absolutism less credible now than a generation ago is the prominence that lies and misinformation have gained in the discourse.

I think you can still believe that any political, religious or economic view is fair to say/publish/broadcast as an ernest expression of perspective, and that even potentially hateful views inevitably come along for that ride. We tolerate the KKK producing literature bc that's the cost for _everyone_ being able to speak. But it's much harder to make the argument that intentional lies and misinformation deserve the same protections as good faith expressions of minority views.

When a person asserts that we need to protect speech which is intended to mislead, isn't it natural to be suspicious?

[raxxorraxor]

That is the usual degradation of freedom of speech and not at all different from other cases before.

Some opinions hurt many sensibilities and the result is lacking support for most essential freedoms. This justification might seem more relevant to you, but with perspective it is the same reason others used to prohibit speech.

> When a person asserts that we need to protect speech which is intended to mislead, isn't it natural to be suspicious?

There is enough literature here to really weight this argument and the sad result is that you often defend the speech of scoundrels but it still is the better result.

Some people say it is natural to dislike different skin colors. The logic of your argument would generally be seen as short sighted and it certainly is in regards to freedom of speech. Again, a bit of literature exposure helps.

[abeppu]

My claim is that intentionally dishonest speech shouldn't obviously enjoy the same protections as earnest speech.

> That is the usual degradation of freedom of speech and not at all different from other cases before.

That's a really sweeping statement and I think perhaps (fittingly) is an intentional mischaracterization of the history of attacks on free speech in the US. E.g. looking at a pretty generic source, whether someone is lying has basically never been the criteria that the government uses to suppress stuff. From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_in_the_United_State...

- In the 19th century the postmaster refused to carry abolitionist literature, because of its topic, not whether statements were true or false.

- The Comstock Law forbade the postal service from carrying even personal letters with sexual content -- again, regardless of truth or falsity.

- The Sedition Act of 1918 forbade "disloyal, profane, scurrilous, or abusive language" against the government/flag etc, again regardless of truth or falsity.

- Charles Coughlin lost his ability to broadcast and a newspaper mailing permit b/c of his Nazi-sympathizing views, but not specifically because of lies.

- The Smith Act of 1940 went after communists and others who advocate the overthrow of the government or even to affiliate with an association which so advocates. Again, no requirement of lying required.

- The current emphasis on banning queer books, identifying peace activists who called for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza as being "aligned with terrorists", or forbidding government agencies from mentioning "diversity" are all entirely indifferent on whether a person or agency is telling the truth.

Even in the colonial era, Alexander Hamilton's argument for freedom of the press, when defending newspaper printer John Peter Zenger emphasized the right to tell the truth: "nature and the laws of our country have given us a right to liberty of both exposing and opposing arbitrary power ... by speaking and writing the truth."

We have civil legal mechanisms to fight those who lie in a manner which harms the reputation of a person or company (defamation, libel, slander). We have criminal legal mechanisms to fight those who lie in specific ways to enrich themselves (e.g. wire fraud). To my understanding, we don't have any kind of legal mechanism to bring to bear when someone knowingly lies for purposes of manipulating public discourse -- e.g. claiming that (unnamed) doctors are sitting on death panels, or that a large number of (unnamed) staff in the State Department are communists, or that the 15-minute city is a conspiracy (of no one in particular) to imprison people in their neighborhoods.

If you have literature you care to recommend that makes a compelling argument for why lies/misinformation specifically be protected, please cite specific documents rather than waving at "literature exposure" in general.

[spiderfarmer]

If he won't cite any literature, maybe he can find the Truth Social post he bases his worldview on.

[croes]

A what do they when they don’t like it?

The once who claimed there is a speech police implement speech police and all what the vocal free speech persons do is don’t like it?

Did the address it at the president or do they fear consequences?

[rtpg]

You can support free speech in the abstract, end up defending certain people whose views you hate, and still come up with a good amount of respect. The ACLU is able to maintain respect despite helping some pretty terrible people in court.

There's just a cohort of people who claim to be in favor of free speech, but also use it as a defense to associate themselves with people they really don't need to. Even the worst people in the world need _a_ lawyer, your local fascist doesn't need a booster on Twitter. There's a spectrum and subjectivity here of course.

"Free speech" has turned into a fun little bad faith thing to throw into arguments where it (for most people) doesn't belong. And even for fellow travelers, these people arguing in bad faith tend to throw in some other stupid garbage into their arguments! So it gets a bad rap, as an indicator that an argument is about to get stupid.

[least]

> The idea that it's somehow suspicious to be in favor of free speech has got to be one of the worst developments in American politics.

This isn't really a recent development but I think I understand what you mean. Authoritarians, regardless of their political leanings, try and sow distrust in free speech in order to garner support for advancing their agenda.

Currently, the "right" is using "free speech" as a tool to push back against the "woke agenda." So now "free speech" is becoming faux pas, at least in certain circles. Mentioning it as something you value without some long preface to explain yourself now associates you with a certain group of people, whether that group actually values free speech or not.