Free Speech

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Re: Free Speech

Post by red assassin » Sun, 2. May 21, 20:18

Ketraar wrote:
Sun, 2. May 21, 19:27
Yes I agree, but the people are the problem not the fact that some one was allowed to say it. The argument is not, are people idiots and mostly behave on instinct even if they can manipulate a microwave? The answer to that is, yes. The question here is, where do you draw the line of when, who or what is ALLOWED to be said, who defines that line and is it sensible to even have such a line.

Anything anyone can say has the potential to hurt some ones feelings, inspire some one to invent the cure to cancer or join a suicide cult, in some cases this is true for all with the same speech. At the end of the day its just speech, words. You cant physically harm anyone with words, it will always require some one to perform an action for words to have consequences and this is why allowing the most speech as possible is key to a democratic society, INCLUDING some hate speech, some idiotic speech and the likes. It doesnt mean there should be no consequences from the speech, in some cases even legal ones (but very limited). But pre-emptive trying to silence groups WILL NOT solve anything, in fact all it does is push these groups to the "underground" and unless all people care is to not be bothered, this is the last thing anyone should want.

MFG

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Driving groups whose ideas are incompatible with a free society underground is perfect. That's exactly what we should do! The danger is size of audience. If some proportion of people are vulnerable to getting recruited by fascists, say (and I believe we're all agreed that they are), then the absolute best thing you can do is make it difficult for the fascists to put their message where people will see it, and make them worry about putting the message out in case it's traced back to them! If you let them advertise and recruit freely then pretty soon you have more fascists recruiting even more freely, and then the idea starts to become mainstream and even more people sign up, and the next thing you know the fascists are in charge and nobody's free any more.

The check here is easy: do we do more harm to a free society by a) allowing a particular idea to spread and dealing with the consequences or b) not allowing that idea to spread? Option b does some general harm to the overall freedom of society, and so we should avoid deploying it where possible. But when the consequences of option a are "now the fascists are in charge", "now everybody is dead of a deadly pandemic", and so forth, obviously b is preferable.

Arguments suggesting that it's uniquely impossible to draw this line for speech are obviously nonsense. For example, the government says you need a license and insurance before you can drive a car because the harm to people's freedoms from installing that restriction is less than the harm to people's freedoms by letting untrained, uninsured people drive. We, as a society via our elected representatives, have decided that this restriction - and the stringency of the license test etc - is the correct balance for the overall good of society. This restriction was brought in when the changing nature of society (i.e. the availability of the car) made it necessary. It's one of countless examples of cases where the government has legislated "this thing is fine but this other thing isn't", "this thing is fine but only subject to these checks", etc. Again, this is the very nature of a free society: some freedoms are curtailed to protect the overall freedom of the whole society. If your society develops a road deaths problem, then you bring in restrictions as necessary to reduce that problem. If your society develops a fascist problem, then you bring in restrictions as necessary to reduce that problem, you don't sit on your hands going "but their freedoms!" until they take over and remove yours.
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Re: Free Speech

Post by mr.WHO » Sun, 2. May 21, 20:37

Imperial Good wrote:
Sun, 2. May 21, 18:29
mr.WHO wrote:
Sun, 2. May 21, 18:18
I support right to Free Speech specifically, because Nazi and Commies do not support it. You won't defeat Nazi/Commie by becoming like them and censorship is one of the first thing they do, always.
Such movements also use freedom of speech to gain ground and followers, fuelling them and allowing them to start. If they were crushed early on or prevented from growing they would never get beyond a few deranged extremists.
Boys and girls that's the reason why you should pay attention during history lesson!
YOUR METHOD was actually done aganst both Nazi and Commie - both Weimar Republic and Russian Empire were heavy censor states and yet they didn't slowed down Nazi and Commie the slightest.
You could, at that time freely read both Mein Kampf and Marks/Engels works in France, Britain and US (you even had both Hitler and Stalin as "person of the year" cover in Times magazine), yet nothing happened there - wonder why?

Claiming it's Free Speech that allowed (and would allow in future) Nazi and Commie get into power is absurd. It's like claiming Oxygen will also help them get into power because without it they will not be able to breath.

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Re: Free Speech

Post by Ketraar » Sun, 2. May 21, 20:46

red assassin wrote:
Sun, 2. May 21, 20:18
That's exactly what we should do! The danger is size of audience. If some proportion of people are vulnerable to getting recruited by fascists, say (and I believe we're all agreed that they are), then the absolute best thing you can do is make it difficult for the fascists to put their message where people will see it, and make them worry about putting the message out in case it's traced back to them!
I could not disagree more. Its a fascist tactic to silence anyone with different opinion or agenda. There is nothing wrong to have laws that prevent fascism to take power, for example we have human rights, any one going against those already has a wall that cant (shouldn't) be surpassed. I cant accept turning into the thing I despise to combat it. Yes they dont follow the same rules, I dont care. There are many ways to combat these things, but if we use the same methods, even if to to achieve "nobler" goals, then we have already lost.
BaronVerde wrote:
Sun, 2. May 21, 20:11
@Clakclak, fully ack. Our two posts where interleaved, sotosay, I believe I was reacting to the same phrase "speech does not harm" than you were, it does, much worse than any thermonuclear warhead.
Really? Hyperbole much? If words mean so much would you not care for accuracy? Not very sciency thing to say I would argue.
clakclak wrote:
Sun, 2. May 21, 20:01
Those of us that have faced discrimination, be it sexisim, racism, ableism or any other form, can attest to speech leading to a feeling of alienation and frustration.
We all had our feelings hurt, it has nothing to do with free speech though. You can get your feelings hurt without any speech at all, this is unrelated. The pen is mightier then the sword is a metaphor, not to be taken literal, because literally the sword is OP in comparison to the pen, just saying. :roll:

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Re: Free Speech

Post by BaronVerde » Sun, 2. May 21, 20:49

mr.WHO wrote:
Sun, 2. May 21, 20:37
YOUR METHOD was actually done aganst both Nazi and Commie -
This is incorrect, Weimarer Republik didn't have the legal means nor the necessary majority to stop them in the elections 1930 and 1932. The genocide started later. There's a quite reasonable Wikipedia article about the Nazi rise to power.

@Ketraar: An H-Bomb on a big city like New York, all gone, 9 Million. Now, even if it happens once a year, how many deaths worldwide a year do we have because of lying politicians, deportations, migrations, or in short, the power of words ? Unknown, ok. Exaggeration ? I leave it to the reader. Last year was bad ... But that's not the kind of discussion I find useful. I'll avoid analogies in the future.

But how about a fruitful discussion about langugae and it's impact on human wellbeing ? I've posted a few links on the matter, let's follow that road ...

Thanks,@red assasin below me :-), I'll have that link later, looks interesting.
Last edited by BaronVerde on Sun, 2. May 21, 21:19, edited 4 times in total.

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Re: Free Speech

Post by red assassin » Sun, 2. May 21, 21:02

BaronVerde wrote:
Sun, 2. May 21, 20:49
mr.WHO wrote:
Sun, 2. May 21, 20:37
YOUR METHOD was actually done aganst both Nazi and Commie -
This is incorrect, Weimarer Republik didn't have the legal means nor the necessary majority to stop them in the elections 1930 and 1932. There's a quite reasonable Wikipedia article about the Nazi rise to power.
Here is specifically a discussion of the use of anti-hate speech-like laws against Nazi propaganda outlets during the Weimar Republic period: https://www.bjpa.org/content/upload/bjp ... r_1940.pdf
tl;dr weak enforcement of weak laws imposed minor fines and occasional brief jail sentences which did literally nothing to actually restrain the production or dissemination of virulently anti-Semitic propaganda for a decade before the Nazis gained power.

Ketraar wrote:
Sun, 2. May 21, 20:46
I could not disagree more. Its a fascist tactic to silence anyone with different opinion or agenda. There is nothing wrong to have laws that prevent fascism to take power, for example we have human rights, any one going against those already has a wall that cant (shouldn't) be surpassed. I cant accept turning into the thing I despise to combat it. Yes they dont follow the same rules, I dont care. There are many ways to combat these things, but if we use the same methods, even if to to achieve "nobler" goals, then we have already lost.
Once fascists have the numbers to take power, no law in the world is going to stop them. You have to nip it in the bud early, not sit there worrying about your principles while they organise to remove them. Again, every democratic nation - even the US, which is the most vocally pro-radical free speech - has significant restraints on speech already because it's obviously necessary to do so to maintain that freedom for everybody. This sort of nuance-free hardline take that any possible restraint on speech is fascism exists in no nation's legal system and serves only to allow actual fascists to justify themselves. You yourself clearly lay out a reasonable line here - we have human rights; if you're advocating for the removal of human rights from a chunk of society, that's not an acceptable political position that we should be tolerating.
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Re: Free Speech

Post by Ketraar » Sun, 2. May 21, 21:21

BaronVerde wrote:
Sun, 2. May 21, 20:49
@Ketraar: An H-Bomb on a big city like New York...
Sorry but I'm not going down this rabbit hole, you should not either.
red assassin wrote:
Sun, 2. May 21, 21:02
if you're advocating for the removal of human rights from a chunk of society, that's not an acceptable political position that we should be tolerating.
And we have those (at least in my country). But that is the action part that we can put holds and barriers. But I would still fight for their right to say stupid things. I mean the bible exists, I dont hold the words in it responsible for the cruelties done "in their name". As I said, you can find inspiration in many things to do many deeds, we should make sure to create societies where people have the ability to think for themselves and not be told what to think for their own protection. It rubs me all the wrong ways just to think about it.

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Re: Free Speech

Post by mr.WHO » Sun, 2. May 21, 21:25

Ketraar wrote:
Sun, 2. May 21, 20:46
red assassin wrote:
Sun, 2. May 21, 20:18
That's exactly what we should do! The danger is size of audience. If some proportion of people are vulnerable to getting recruited by fascists, say (and I believe we're all agreed that they are), then the absolute best thing you can do is make it difficult for the fascists to put their message where people will see it, and make them worry about putting the message out in case it's traced back to them!
I could not disagree more. Its a fascist tactic to silence anyone with different opinion or agenda. There is nothing wrong to have laws that prevent fascism to take power, for example we have human rights, any one going against those already has a wall that cant (shouldn't) be surpassed. I cant accept turning into the thing I despise to combat it. Yes they dont follow the same rules, I dont care. There are many ways to combat these things, but if we use the same methods, even if to to achieve "nobler" goals, then we have already lost.
WW2 proved that Censorhip fail at best and will be subverted for bad things at worst.

Germany and Russia have long history of censorhip and they are going from bad regime to worse.
France, UK and US had Free Speech yet they didn't turned into Nazi/Commie.


Censorship is an easy solution by stupid people for stupid people.
Free Speech and Education is much better.

BaronVerde wrote:
Sun, 2. May 21, 20:49
mr.WHO wrote:
Sun, 2. May 21, 20:37
YOUR METHOD was actually done aganst both Nazi and Commie -
This is incorrect, Weimarer Republik didn't have the legal means nor the necessary majority to stop them in the elections 1930 and 1932. The genocide started later. There's a quite reasonable Wikipedia article about the Nazi rise to power.
I've been speaking about censorship failure of Weimar Republic - the elections you mentioned are proof of that failure.
Ketraar mentioned the weakness of Weimar, yet Russian Empire had most well developed and opressive censorship aparathus at that time and sill they failed to stop commie revolution.


CENSORSHIP...DO...NOT...WORK.
PERIOD!

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Re: Free Speech

Post by BaronVerde » Sun, 2. May 21, 21:46

@mr.WHO There was no censorship of Nazis to speak of by the Weimarer Republik. No censorship, no censorship failure. Maybe it wouldn't have come that bad had there been early decisive rejection (or censorship) of their mindset. That's what we argue. Though the times today are different with the social networks, compared to print and paper of the 1920.

@Ketraar: I won't, I already said that that disussion isn't fruitful and suggested to discuss the power of language for human wellbeing (edit, because that was my main contribution in that post and earlier). I suggested some reading, if you have something similar to underline the claim that words don't harm, pls. let us know so we can advance the discussion. I love advancement :arrow:

Also, pls. let me know if and when you change your hat from user to moderator (edit: or any other executive power) ;-)
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Re: Free Speech

Post by mr.WHO » Sun, 2. May 21, 22:01

BaronVerde wrote:
Sun, 2. May 21, 21:46
@mr.WHO There was no censorship of Nazis to speak of by the Weimarer Republik. No censorship, no censorship failure. Maybe it wouldn't have come that bad had there been early decisive rejection (or censorship) of their mindset. That's what we argue. Though the times today are different with the social networks, compared to print and paper of the 1920.
Are you serious? for real? Nazi early on were under Weimar military intelligence surveilance. Same when he did his first march on Reichstag and put in prison. There were periods where Nazi have been censored as dangerous element, but it still failed.

It would be equal to today US having a Guantanamo inmate becoming social media celebrity and running for Governor seat.

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Re: Free Speech

Post by BaronVerde » Sun, 2. May 21, 22:09

@mr.WHO: I find it most tiresome to repeat myself, so here's food:

http://www.verfassungen.de/de19-33/verf19-i.htm:
Artikel 118. Jeder Deutsche hat das Recht, innerhalb der Schranken der allgemeinen Gesetze seine Meinung durch Wort, Schrift, Druck, Bild oder in sonstiger Weise frei zu äußern. An diesem Rechte darf ihn kein Arbeits- oder Anstellungsverhältnis hindern, und niemand darf ihn benachteiligen, wenn er von diesem Rechte Gebrauch macht.
Eine Zensur findet nicht statt, doch können für Lichtspiele durch Gesetz abweichende Bestimmungen getroffen werden. Auch sind zur Bekämpfung der Schund- und Schmutzliteratur sowie zum Schutze der Jugend bei öffentlichen Schaustellungen und Darbietungen gesetzliche Maßnahmen zulässig.
Emphasis mine: No censorship will take place ...

Movie/film could be excluded from that rule. Further read in English in @red assassin's article and via wikipedia.
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Re: Free Speech

Post by fiksal » Sun, 2. May 21, 22:15

For me debate ended when Mr Who admitted that calling for violence is an acceptable free speech.

It's never acceptable. Period. And it only leads to more violence, as it is by design, applauded by the protectors of that speech.

Ketraar wrote:
Sun, 2. May 21, 20:46
There is nothing wrong to have laws that prevent fascism to take power, for example we have human rights, any one going against those already has a wall that cant (shouldn't) be surpassed.
What law would prevent 'them' to take power, if any promise of genocide is a free and protected speech?
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Re: Free Speech

Post by Imperial Good » Sun, 2. May 21, 22:35

A big issue with freedom of speech is that it is also freedom to spread lies, which might even be done with malicious intent. If everyone was smart this would not be a problem, as people would read the lies and not believe or act on them. However is everyone really that smart to be infallible to all lies? What about children who might stumble across such lies and lack the experience or knowledge to spot them? This is a big problem with complete freedom of speech which can cause it to be detrimental to society.

For example a person can claim that 5G mobile phone masts are spreading corona virus. Anyone who is smart should laugh and them because that clearly is a lie and at least highly improbable. However the reality is that many adults believe such comments are true and as a result people have set fire and destroyed many 5G mobile phone network masts last year.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-52164358
This is not in a country where people are still highly superstitious. This is in a country used as an example to represent the developed world and progress of humanity.

This problem is only going to get worse as AI are trained to create intricate and believable lies faster. The lies might become more and more difficult to spot, to the point that even people who consider themselves smart enough to spot such a lie can be deceived. Even then children or young adults will be exposed to all these lies, and how can you expect them to spot them when you, a much older and more experienced adult, might struggle to?

On the other extreme if you start to regulate freedom of speech then when to stop? When the speech was written by an AI? When people tell lies? Or tell something the government does not want to be true? Or tells something that makes the government look bad? Or that goes against the sayings of some great supreme cultist? Regulating freedom of speech can be abused just as easily as not regulating it.

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Re: Free Speech

Post by mr.WHO » Sun, 2. May 21, 23:06

fiksal wrote:
Sun, 2. May 21, 22:15
For me debate ended when Mr Who admitted that calling for violence is an acceptable free speech.

It's never acceptable. Period. And it only leads to more violence, as it is by design, applauded by the protectors of that speech.
Ketraar wrote:
Sun, 2. May 21, 20:46
There is nothing wrong to have laws that prevent fascism to take power, for example we have human rights, any one going against those already has a wall that cant (shouldn't) be surpassed.
What law would prevent 'them' to take power, if any promise of genocide is a free and protected speech?
Then I would like to ask what law ever saved anyone from genocide? Because through my short life I already saw several genocides, despite so-called international law banning it.
Historically speaking no law nor censorship stopped any genocide, because it's not people who call to violence that are dangerous, it's people who listen to these calls.

If there are enough people who would be willing to listen, then no amount of law or censorship will stop it - you can't censorship everything and if you can't, then why bother at all?

Given enough time ANYTHING can become call to violence or hate speech:
Stories of ancient heroes read by Americans spawned cute and harmless Superman, while the same stories read by Germans spawned Master Race.
Stories about ancient times, mysticism and Atlantis, read by Americans spawned Star Wars, while the same stories ready by Germans spawned Aryian superior origing of Germans.
Darwin theories in the West spawned whole branch of new science, while Germans use it to prove that other races are inferior.


Hell, you could even say that Galileo speech was call to violence and hate speech, because it lead to reformation wars that had alot of death and genocide.

Who will decide what is good and what is not and at what point?
I provided plenty historical examples that goverments are terrible at censorship.
Imperial Good wrote:
Sun, 2. May 21, 22:35
A big issue with freedom of speech is that it is also freedom to spread lies, which might even be done with malicious intent. If everyone was smart this would not be a problem, as people would read the lies and not believe or act on them. However is everyone really that smart to be infallible to all lies? What about children who might stumble across such lies and lack the experience or knowledge to spot them? This is a big problem with complete freedom of speech which can cause it to be detrimental to society.
I think people in 90s and 2000s would be shocked about modern day Free Speech and rampart censorship.
Back then is was simply "don't be stupid" and "it's school and parents responsibility to teach children".
I remember the internet back then where anybody could post F-bombs and N-bombs left and right, various conspiracy theories, Flat Earthers, new age-cults and 2012 end times theories were EVERYWHERE, yet somehow people were much much more civil without any need for censorship.

That really speak volumes about present day - all above are banned, yet it became worse - radical fall in education? general stupidity?

Another censorship failure.

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Re: Free Speech

Post by Imperial Good » Mon, 3. May 21, 00:49

mr.WHO wrote:
Sun, 2. May 21, 23:06
I think people in 90s and 2000s would be shocked about modern day Free Speech and rampart censorship.
I think they would more be shocked at all the lies and trivial posts being spread. Back then most people did not have internet, especially young children. Now billions of people have access to the internet every day, including children who can barely read or write.

I do agree that at times people are now making mountains out of a molehill. Someone writes the English word "n*****" (this has been auto censored, this is not a word I normally use in conversation) in a post? Oh dear, let us lambast them with huge posts saying how atrocious they are and describe it as "N-word" instead of quoiting the actual word to the point that readers have no clue what the original word even was until they do massive internet searches and make a guess (especially if non-native English speaker). By this stage the fact any racism was or was not being committed is totally lost, and it may even turn out to have been a quote made by someone long ago who may even be dead in the meantime so even if they were a extreme racist back then they cannot be held accountable or punished for it now.

On the other hand people posting truly hateful stuff kind of deserve to have it censored. Such posts are often made with only malicious intent and can potentially help spread such behaviour unless stopped. An example of this would be children bullying another child in their class on social media, this can ruin the victim's life due to the psychological damage it causes and in extreme cases it has even been known to lead people to suicide or other extreme acts. This could even not be limited to outright hate speech, but also messages designed to manipulate and trick people such as used by scammers or extremist cults to get victims. This sort of content the world would be better without.

The issue is getting a fine balance where malicious content is removed and the creators punished for it while still allowing most people to create content without having it censored. Who decides on what "malicious content" is? In a democratic society this could be sexist, racist or terrorist content. However in a less democratic society, this can easily become content supporting opposition candidates, anything talking badly about the supreme leader, anything that is not the supreme religion or anything that does not show the rest of the world as being evil.

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Re: Free Speech

Post by Ketraar » Mon, 3. May 21, 00:55

fiksal wrote:
Sun, 2. May 21, 22:15
What law would prevent 'them' to take power, if any promise of genocide is a free and protected speech?
In my country it is written in the constitution that advocating for fascism is not allowed, so any movement that aim at that is deemed illegal and thus cannot run for any election. Also as I mentioned Human Rights are a law and anyone infringing on them will have to face the justice system. Its not that complicated.
Imperial Good wrote:
Sun, 2. May 21, 22:35
Regulating freedom of speech can be abused just as easily as not regulating it.
In deed it is, but when in doubt more freedom is better the less. Also I would like to reiterate that freedom of speech is not freedom of consequence, especially of other people's speech.

Wrt to the 5G nuts, these type of things have always existed, the difference from back in the 90's was that we were not able to hear all of them and they would not be able to spread it so far. Still no one is forced to listen or watch and even they do, anyone that had access to that has also access to other opinions, if they want to find them (which I doubt they do, but that's my cynicism kicking in). I'd argue most of these people just need to belong to something and found these communities that "get them" we should try and find out why that is and address the root of it and not block their internet, chances are they are victims too.

MFG

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Imperial Good wrote:
Mon, 3. May 21, 00:49
An example of this would be children bullying another child in their class on social media, this can ruin the victim's life due to the psychological damage it causes and in extreme cases it has even been known to lead people to suicide or other extreme acts. This could even not be limited to outright hate speech, but also messages designed to manipulate and trick people such as used by scammers or extremist cults to get victims. This sort of content the world would be better without.
Bullying is not free speach, its bullying we have laws for that.
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Re: Free Speech

Post by clakclak » Mon, 3. May 21, 01:11

Ketraar wrote:
Sun, 2. May 21, 20:46
[...]
clakclak wrote:
Sun, 2. May 21, 20:01
Those of us that have faced discrimination, be it sexisim, racism, ableism or any other form, can attest to speech leading to a feeling of alienation and frustration.
We all had our feelings hurt, it has nothing to do with free speech though. You can get your feelings hurt without any speech at all, this is unrelated. The pen is mightier then the sword is a metaphor, not to be taken literal, because literally the sword is OP in comparison to the pen, just saying. :roll:

MFG

Ketraar
Some of the sources here are in German, because they were not avaliable in English. Sorry but it was the best I could do.

You can try to downplay things all you like Ketraar, but people face discrimination and suffer from it. Try to deminish their experience by claiming this is just about "hurt feelings", but at the end of the day it really is about more than that. It is about power and who wields it.

To give a concret example: In Germany it is a punishable offense to call someone a racist (in this case a woman had to pay 1200€ for two google reviews in which she called her former teacher a racist). The second review detailed an examplary incident which happend in the school and which the writer of the review felt was racist.

You yourself have argued against total free speech when you said "It doesnt mean there should be no consequences from the speech, in some cases even legal ones (but very limited)." Well this is what you get in reality. Free speech is never free, it will always be applied selectivly. It will always be stacked against minorities. Meanwhile AfD member Andreas Winhart can say stuff like, "if an N-word[...] coughs on me in my neighbourhood I have to know if he is sick or not" and Gauland can loudly voice his wish to "dispose" of Aydan Özoğuz and then have absolutely nothing happen to him. Why?

Simple, because Germany has a problem with systematic racism. (Systematic racism meaning that structures, instiutions and the socialisation of citizen contribute to a racist status quo. Those that do not fit the 'norm' are treated worse, not because there is an active conspiracy against them, but simply because they are viewed as 'others'.) And as long as that does not change on a fundamental level hate speech laws will be necessary to protect minorities from racist attacks as they help to mitigate some of the disatvantages that come with having to live in a system that is allready rigged against them.

Or to say it in the words of Desmond Tutu: "If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor." And no, I am not being dramatic, just because I think that it is an injustice when people get punished for naming racism where it happens, but the racists get off scot free.

We can debatte all these theoretical ideas but at least in the country I live in the situation is what it is and I don't see this as just being about some "hurt feelings".
"The problem with gender is that it prescribes how we should be rather than recognizing how we are. Imagine how much happier we would be, how much freer to be our true individual selves, if we didn't have the weight of gender expectations." - Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

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fiksal
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Re: Free Speech

Post by fiksal » Mon, 3. May 21, 01:48

Ketraar wrote:
Mon, 3. May 21, 00:55
fiksal wrote:
Sun, 2. May 21, 22:15
What law would prevent 'them' to take power, if any promise of genocide is a free and protected speech?
In my country it is written in the constitution that advocating for fascism is not allowed, so any movement that aim at that is deemed illegal and thus cannot run for any election. Also as I mentioned Human Rights are a law and anyone infringing on them will have to face the justice system. Its not that complicated.
That's a good and concrete law then. No such law exists in US or Russia, to my knowledge.

mr.WHO wrote:
Sun, 2. May 21, 23:06
If there are enough people who would be willing to listen, then no amount of law or censorship will stop it - you can't censorship everything and if you can't, then why bother at all?
People who call for violence are as guilty as those then that follow it. And just because the fight is tough doesnt mean you should quit.

mr.WHO wrote:
Sun, 2. May 21, 23:06
Who will decide what is good and what is not and at what point?
I provided plenty historical examples that goverments are terrible at censorship.
Democracy does, people that vote on laws. If a law says one cant call for violence, then one can not, for example.

And even if we can spend extra time and watch the court cases that would be a mistake, we should be less lenient to anyone holding authority, from cops to politicians. Any show of preference to fascism, call for violence, race superiority, or willingly spreading misinformation is the cause to removal. In my opinion. They can continue their life as private citizens, not public servants.
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Re: Free Speech

Post by BaronVerde » Mon, 3. May 21, 10:39

Ketraar wrote:
Sun, 2. May 21, 20:46
clakclak wrote:
Sun, 2. May 21, 20:01
Those of us that have faced discrimination, be it sexisim, racism, ableism or any other form, can attest to speech leading to a feeling of alienation and frustration.
We all had our feelings hurt, it has nothing to do with free speech though. You can get your feelings hurt without any speech at all, this is unrelated. The pen is mightier then the sword is a metaphor, not to be taken literal, because literally the sword is OP in comparison to the pen, just saying. :roll:
Hurt feelings because of whatever reasons is a very different thing to inciting people to kill for a cause based on lies. Pen against swords is not a metaphor, it is an adage derived from experience, as old as written history. It is ludicrously more complicated than a fight person to person. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_pen_i ... _the_sword

Please cite the claim that 'words do not harm', because that is what was said upthread, and it is the fundamental argument for absolute free speech, am I right ? With deductive reasoning the argument crumbles and falls apart with the failure to prove that the claim is correct. And I think we already did a few steps to disprove it (but am ready for correction) with citing publications on the matter.
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Re: Free Speech

Post by mr.WHO » Mon, 3. May 21, 11:34

fiksal wrote:
Mon, 3. May 21, 01:48
mr.WHO wrote:
Sun, 2. May 21, 23:06
Who will decide what is good and what is not and at what point?
I provided plenty historical examples that goverments are terrible at censorship.
Democracy does, people that vote on laws. If a law says one cant call for violence, then one can not, for example.
On that I can agree, yet Democracy without access to all the information (both true and fake) is not real democracy.
I will even say that if people only have access to one set of inofrmation, no matter for correct and benevolent, it's not Democracy, but masked Dictatorship.

Imperial Good wrote:
Mon, 3. May 21, 00:49
mr.WHO wrote:
Sun, 2. May 21, 23:06
I think people in 90s and 2000s would be shocked about modern day Free Speech and rampart censorship.
I think they would more be shocked at all the lies and trivial posts being spread. Back then most people did not have internet, especially young children. Now billions of people have access to the internet every day, including children who can barely read or write.
Either you're too young to remember these times or you try to pretend that the reality was completely different back then (especially early 2000s).

Pretty much everything that Alex Jones spew now is complete copy/paste New Age crap that was all over internet back then (with hefty load of other popular conspiracy theories threw together, like Philadelphia incident, Area 51, Arctic Nazi).
I haven't belived that crap when I was teenager (and I wasn't sharpest tool in the shed back then), but thanks to knowing all these theories I can easily tell from where, he pull all his crap today.

Thanks to access to information, he is amusing clown to me, rather than deranged individual.
Censorship and bloking the information will only add him credibility and fame, while having Free Speech access to 90s and 2000s conspiracy theories would make his voice silenced much more effectively.

Another example of censorship failure.

All I can see that people calling for censorship always goes for "think about the children". To me it looks like it's not Free Speech that is problem, but rather failure of schools and parents.

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Re: Free Speech

Post by Imperial Good » Mon, 3. May 21, 22:08

mr.WHO wrote:
Mon, 3. May 21, 11:34
Pretty much everything that Alex Jones spew now is complete copy/paste New Age crap that was all over internet back then (with hefty load of other popular conspiracy theories threw together, like Philadelphia incident, Area 51, Arctic Nazi).
I haven't belived that crap when I was teenager (and I wasn't sharpest tool in the shed back then), but thanks to knowing all these theories I can easily tell from where, he pull all his crap today.
Most people in the world did not have access to the internet back then, especially children. I only really had access to it around the year 2000. You could post all the nonsense you want back then and it would only be read by a few people. There was no real "going viral" either as that only started in more recent times.

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