[mercurial]

> In my opinion, free speech is lost the instant you start eroding it with heinous laws that limit it.

I don't know about heinous, but, say, incitation to murder shouldn't be protected free speech (see, eg, Rwanda). So you have to live with limitations in a civilized society, the debate is only on where to set these limits.

> However, the messier question is whether social sanctions should be imposed upon citizens by non-government actors whenever hateful or potentially offensive speech is used. For instance, should an employer be allowed to fire someone because of public racist remarks?

In my mind, employers should abide by the law. Otherwise, it's just as easy to fire somebody for expressing political opinions you disagree with. This shouldn't be a ground for termination.

> What if that employer is the government? What if the remarks were offensive to the government (think anti-war)?

French civil servants are supposed to be neutral in terms of politics, just like soldiers give up a number of rights during their time of service.

[Zancarius]

> I don't know about heinous, but, say, incitation to murder shouldn't be protected free speech (see, eg, Rwanda). So you have to live with limitations in a civilized society, the debate is only on where to set these limits.

I think you're moving the goal post a bit. In the post I was responding to, you were specifically calling out hate speech. Inciting murder and using hateful, racist language are often separate. Yes, I realize the two can be conflated (e.g. racist language inciting violence), but generally, hate speech laws attempt to limit speech that is construed as hateful, typically against a specific racial, ethnic, or other minority. Of course, I suppose I have libertarian leanings that wire me in a manner that make it very difficult to understand why government intervention is seen as a panacea

That said, I'm not precisely sure your example is quite as clear cut in terms of free speech as there are other laws which deal with matters of public safety, premeditation and the sorts, and calling for someone's murder could easily fit into categories outside free speech, depending largely on the circumstances. But, that's a matter for the courts and has been debated ad nauseum for centuries.

[mercurial]

> I think you're moving the goal post a bit. In the post I was responding to, you were specifically calling out hate speech.

Sure. But in your response, you expressed the following:

> In my opinion, free speech is lost the instant you start eroding it with heinous laws that limit it.

That's much stronger than a disagreement about hate speech.

> That said, I'm not precisely sure your example is quite as clear cut in terms of free speech as there are other laws which deal with matters of public safety, premeditation and the sorts, and calling for someone's murder could easily fit into categories outside free speech, depending largely on the circumstances.

I'm no lawyer, but if you don't yourself act on it or participate in planning murder, it sounds like very shaky grounds to send someone to jail.

[Zancarius]

> That's much stronger than a disagreement about hate speech.

I'll grant you that, but you have to admit: The more laws you draft limiting the definition of what construes free speech, the more you're eroding it. Hate speech laws are an example of such.

> I'm no lawyer, but if you don't yourself act on it or participate in planning murder, it sounds like very shaky grounds to send someone to jail.

Well, I'm glad that we're reaching common ground (that actually excites me--please don't take my arguments against your points negatively!). I do agree that sending someone to jail for making questionable threats makes very little sense, but it has been used to some success the world over. In particular, abuse of tactics like that is at least partially to blame for the US jail population being so high. Perhaps not literally, but if you're the wrong color or in the wrong neighborhood, it doesn't take much convincing to be sent away for a few months...

[mercurial]

> I'll grant you that, but you have to admit: The more laws you draft limiting the definition of what construes free speech, the more you're eroding it. Hate speech laws are an example of such.

To be sure, they have to be finely drafted.

> Well, I'm glad that we're reaching common ground (that actually excites me--please don't take my arguments against your points negatively!).

Ah. I'm afraid this is solely a consequence of a lack of clarity on my part. I did not mean "shaky" as in "it would be morally dubious to convict a person", I meant "shaky" as in "it would legally difficult to convict a person". I absolutely think that publicly calling for somebody's murder should be punished, especially if it is part of a sustained campaign, or targets a large group (hence my bringing the Rwanda example earlier - I was thinking about Radio Mille Collines in particular [1]). Please note that in this example, there is nothing vague about the threats.

> In particular, abuse of tactics like that is at least partially to blame for the US jail population being so high.

I'm afraid my expertise is once lacking, but my understanding was that the most common motive for enjoying such comforts as provided by the US taxpayer is a conviction for drug possession.

> please don't take my arguments against your points negatively!

While we disagree, I have been known to enjoy a good discussion, especially if thought-provoking points are raised. Even if we should not reach an agreement, agreeing to disagree is not necessarily a bad conclusion, as long as each party has made a reasonable effort to understand the other's point of view.

A thought recently crossed my mind. We are able to hold a pleasantly well-mannered exchange of view, in part due to the limitation on freedom of speech enforced both by moderation and downvoting. I'd argue that these limits make Hacker News a much more pleasant forum than, say, Youtube.

1: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_Mille_Collines

[Zancarius]

> Ah. I'm afraid this is solely a consequence of a lack of clarity on my part. I did not mean "shaky" as in "it would be morally dubious to convict a person", I meant "shaky" as in "it would legally difficult to convict a person".

I don't think so. I took your point to mean precisely what you intended, that is to say that it's of questionable legality to arrest someone simply because of an opinion not immediately exercised as a threat. Morality hadn't entered my mind.

Although now that you mention it, the morality of arresting someone for committing no more harmful an act than simply opening their mouth is another point of interest, but somewhat unrelated to this discussion. The state of affairs abroad in non-Western parts of the world is generally such that arrests made against such horrid perpetrators of free speech are commonplace. It gives me pause for thought to be thankful that we can have this conversation without immediate fear for our lives.

> I'm afraid my expertise is once lacking, but my understanding was that the most common motive for enjoying such comforts as provided by the US taxpayer is a conviction for drug possession.

While that is certainly true, in cases where a suspect is not found with such paraphernalia and they're especially noisome or talkative, you have other amusing tools at your disposal such as "resisting arrest." A skilled DA could contort those into drug charges, I'm sure, but my point was that it can take very little to wind up behind bars if you're in the wrong neighborhood, the wrong color, dressed the wrong way, or simply seen as a belligerent public nuisance.

I count my lucky stars that I live in a predominantly redneck area in the country where law enforcement generally knows all the townsfolk and is quite friendly and helpful.

> We are able to hold a pleasantly well-mannered exchange of view, in part due to the limitation on freedom of speech enforced both by moderation and downvoting. I'd argue that these limits make Hacker News a much more pleasant forum than, say, Youtube.

The hilarious part about this is that I don't completely agree, because we're 1) exercising our freedom of speech and 2) are sufficiently well-disciplined to hold a mutually respectful discourse (therefore, such limitations on speech are not in danger of being invoked). I suspect that if the HN audience were as broad and numerous as Youtube, we'd have the same problem here, so I'd argue that it's not so much limited free speech (or limitations placed thereon) as much as it is the advantage of a niche community that grant us such fortune. Someone on HN made a comment yesterday or the day before relating trends of the sort to the transformation of Reddit from a reasonable place to hold programming-related discussions to one of the biggest sources of cat pictures and memes on the Internet.

Though I do get the point you're raising, and I understand the use of it as an example, even if I am in disagreement. ;)

[mercurial]

> The state of affairs abroad in non-Western parts of the world is generally such that arrests made against such horrid perpetrators of free speech are commonplace. It gives me pause for thought to be thankful that we can have this conversation without immediate fear for our lives.

Certainly, but in many of these countries, there is no need of a legal framework to disappear people, should they prove too troublesome. Laws are more guidelines than a strictly enforced system.

> While that is certainly true, in cases where a suspect is not found with such paraphernalia and they're especially noisome or talkative, you have other amusing tools at your disposal such as "resisting arrest." A skilled DA could contort those into drug charges, I'm sure, but my point was that it can take very little to wind up behind bars if you're in the wrong neighborhood, the wrong color, dressed the wrong way, or simply seen as a belligerent public nuisance.

I am fortunate to live in a place (Denmark) where the justice system does not take the punitive approach I regularly read about in the US. Though I haven't had interaction with the justice and law enforcement apparatus here, I do think it's a lot harder to end up in jail.

> I suspect that if the HN audience were as broad and numerous as Youtube, we'd have the same problem here, so I'd argue that it's not so much limited free speech (or limitations placed thereon) as much as it is the advantage of a niche community that grant us such fortune.

On the other hand, one of the reason the level of conversation has remained at this level is, I believe, by the enforcement of community standards, whereby newcomers are educated via downvotes, and abusers are hellbanned (though I think hellbanning is used too liberally - one lapse in judgment should not result in hellbanning). I agree that these limitations, being primarily enforced via community standards, are a more gentle way of handling the issue than a legal solution. As for reddit, you can still have good programming-related discussions in specific languages sub-reddits, but I don't know if r/programming has ever been good. But once again, if things have drifted the wrong way, it would be due to a lack of enforcement of standards of behaviour.