[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.

[mitthrowaway2]

Keep in mind that in my comment, I said that free speech generally is about protecting the expression of "beliefs, opinions, and criticisms", and you'd still be open to legal action by harmed parties if you defame them. So I think we can pretty reasonably answer your questions from that standpoint, with the fairly non-controversial addendum that airing incriminating photographs within a courtroom setting would certainly be protected speech.

[slg]

>I said that free speech generally is about protecting the expression of "beliefs, opinions, and criticisms"...airing incriminating photographs within a courtroom setting would certainly be protected speech.

Is a free press not part of free speech? Are incriminating photos only protected speech in a court, but not when published in a newspaper?

I'm just trying to underline that people refuse to recognize the difficulty translating the philosophical discussion of free speech into the complexities of legal definitions. And "free speech absolutists" tend to only live in the philosophical sphere.