The Journalist class whining about freedom of speech after shutting it down and vilifying it for years didn't get the memo.
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@sj_zero I agree with this principle but it doesn't address the likes of yelling fire in a theater or its derivatives. There exists a line, that is not narrow and moves with culture. A variable % of people will always claim the line is ill defined or placed. Who owns owns the player picks the tune and we react. Pressure is applied to the line. Always in a state of flux. Stable political power, energy and materials resources might stabilize it some but good luck with that.
You can see it where the same people crying for their own free speech in the same breath will complain about others. They recognize all their own rights, but don't recognize anyone else's.
But as a general principle, fighting for others right to say things you disagree with strongly is an important one. That's the only thing that makes rights worthwhile, the ability to use them when it's inconvenient.
@sj_zero We agree fighting for everyone's free speech is best practice. Empty room aside. The fire in a theater line is the elephant in the room still ignored. It's there and depending on your perspective and sensitivity you see it differently. Just to toss a stick in the wheel, free speech is based on the notion of free will. If free will does exist, I would argue it is doing so in a diminishing fashion. Much passing for "free speech" is no more than messaging w/aims speaker unaware
Yelling "fire" in a theater is none that. It's just being a malevolent jerk.
@threalist @sj_zero This is being a bit obtuse. Of course yelling fire is being a jerk. The line is not IN the extremes of noble hero and jerk. It's in-between when cultures, races and interests clash and ones perspective of valuable shared ideas or prevention of harms, creates harm to others. I'm sure you can conceive of that line. Yelling fire jerk gets jail time. You can be a harmful jerk with free speech and be untouchable. In between those two is the line I'm referring to.
Yelling "fire" in a theater isnt relevant. It isnt an idea.
@threalist @sj_zero First, I said I'm for the protection of every ones speech and agree the least liked need the most protection. So lets not create a straw-man. Obviously I was referring to shouting fire in a full theater. It is an idea that can kill. If I express the idea that someone should do harm to one of your loved ones. That's over the line. Some ideas cross a culture line. Pretending the line doesn't exist doesn't mean it's not there.
People fuck around and find out all the time.
One of the things is that restrictions on free speech have different parts to it. Law, platform rules, or social taboo all can each contribute to the ability to speak or not speak, and they have different effects and should be treated with different levels of scrutiny, since laws directly affect people everywhere, platform rules directly affect people on an entire platform, and social taboo is essentially a code of ethics people agree to follow generally. The shade of the enforcement is different between the three as well.
What you're talking about is with respect to free will is also important, and it's a completely different angle of free speech. I speak of "The Establishment" often, and the danger of communications monopolies or government taking over communications pathways. You end up only getting a certain point of view and nothing else, and that does end up affecting how wide your thoughts can be. That's one reason why it's so important that diversity of speech be encouraged, even if we find what's said offensive. Sometimes what is offensive is also true.
There was a woman from North Korea who did the interview circuit about a year or two back, and she talked about living in North Korea, and that people thought they were skeptical and that they had a good idea that the propaganda wasn't true, but when she left she was blown away by just how much beyond the obvious lies were lies. Imagine living on the verge of starvation your whole life and getting out and realizing the rest of the world had *an obesity epidemic*!
While we're not facing the same problems as North Korea, it's clear that there's so much propaganda from the establishment that those who step out of it may be shocked at what truths we have been blind to.
Neither of those are ideas in the sense of concepts, just initiating actions. They are a step in a process not the expression of an abstract concept.
@sj_zero @threalist Do it and when people die or are injured your lawyers standing up and saying it is perfectly legal to do it will get you where? You can have a rope and a tree and of all the ingredient needed to get some one hung with just some abstract ideas There's a line and you referred to it above. It's wide and moves with culture.
@sj_zero You may be reading opposition from me that doesn't exist. I was stating the obvious. it's no easy game. I suspect you have spent way more time considering it in your line of work. The moving target and sharpness of the line is a huge complication. Harm benefit analysis of policy is viewed thought a perspective often in hind sight by people in positions of power who have skin in the game. Yuck but it's like plumbing, want civilization you got to handle the shit. Someones got to do it.
@sj_zero It made me think as well. That's about the best we can hope for. I'll read the doxxing thing.