Since the inception of the United States, freedom of speech has been a bedrock American social norm, at least in concept if not always in practice (obviously through much of US history there was restrictions on freedom of speech for many groups, such as women and blacks). And one could argue this was a norm that worked reasonably well, and allowed for a reasonably productive, socially cohesive society.

One thing that we may only be appreciating in hindsight that seemed to make freedom of speech work as well as it did was that much communication was done through the media/press, which was a reasonably responsible, effective gatekeeper of what ideas got expressed and amplified, and which ones didn't.

In our current society with internet/social media and the seeming dissolution of the press as a gatekeeper of ideas, it seems that absolutely "freedom of speech" is a norm that we may need to readdress.

All the recent hate crime attacks, both domestic and international, that all seemed to be fueled in varying degrees by the free dissemination of bad ideas, seems to underscore this question.

At this point, I think this is a legitimate question that one could pose, whether there should be much higher restriction of speech, especially through internet/social media, and how this could logistically be accomplished in a socially responsible fashion.

Newspapers have printed garbage since there were newspapers.

Plato wrote about censoring art for the benefit of society thousands of years ago, and countless authoritarian regimes have cited similar concerns in justifying politically and epistemology horrific policies.

Incitement and defamation are already illegal and commercial speech is barely protected.

Outside of campaign finance reform, I'm at a hard "No" wrt this OP.

Freedom of speech is a pressure valve. People want to express themselves and we'd rather they can hold rallies, for example, rather than expressing themselves through actions that might be extreme.

Allowing the state to regulate speech and silence dissent is a terrifying precedent. Instead of trying to tell people what they are allowed to say, think, or believe, it is better to encourage an open dialogue of ideas and opinions.

Absolutely and we already are in Europe/UK. As well as hate speech laws there is a move towards regulating the social media companies. The companies may hold that off to some extent with some self-regulation but the 'anything goes' days are over.

The argument against is that these sort of laws are dangerous to liberty and democracy. However social media is too influential to ignore so the political question is what the rules should be rather than whether they should exist.

the united states already has all the free speech protection it needs. the government shall not restrict your ability to speak.

to try and regulate private platforms to make them provide "free speech" is a ridiculous notion that goes against the idea of the first amendment. You are not guaranteed a platform by a private company. private companies have no obligation to host you. if people have been "de-platformed" then sucks for them, they should have been better people.

it amazes me in the United States that members of the supposed party of "small government" and "free market" are now the party of "private entities can't be mean to us and your private company needs to be regulated to give us a platform to spew our ignorance and hate.."

I don't support your first amendment. It was a good idea once possibly. In any case if you're defending free speech then doesn't it need to be on merit rather than it just being what is in the Constitution?

We have long had some regulation of media and have had hate speech laws for a while. For all their faults its far better than no regulation/laws. Social media being new has escaped regulation but it's far too powerful for that to continue.

what exactly are you expressing concern about with regards to social media?

is it the idea that you think they should be regulated to be forced to provide a platform for everyone? the people being "deplatformed" in the US are being deplatformed for hate speech, so are you agreeing you have no problem with that?

or is this just an abstract concern for the future?

Nothing like that. Hate speech laws might force them to ban people they don't want to but of course they can ban people who don't reach the point of breaking the law.

This is good for example
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-47974579
but we shouldn't just rely on their judgement, eventually the law has to kick in and force them to exclude that stuff.


Beyond hate there's other responsibilities. Vaccinations and climate change are examples where the regulators may have to step in to enforce some responsibility in what is published.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/a...edia-6khdfgzj0

It's not at all clear yet how this sort of regulation will be implemented but again in my view this issue is 'what it should be' rather than 'whether it should be.

This isn't some entirely new idea. The BBC for example had an interview with Nigel Lawson (an ex very important politician who is now a climate change sceptic and a lobbyist I think) made silly claims about climate change. The regulator found against the BBC for not challenging his claims.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-43699607

I accept that obviously extending this to social media companies is hard but I've no doubt something should be done and little doubt that in Europe/UK at least somethings will be done.

I started a thread a bit like this once before, and I think the OP there still contains questions that I think are interesting. I don't really know what the answer ought to be.

As an addendum, this always reminds me of a book by Lawrence Lessig which I read probably 20 years ago, or thereabout. That book was about copyright law and the constitution, but the first part lays out an interesting argument about the relationship between constitutional interpretation and technological change, and how changing tech exposes what Lessig called "latent ambiguities" in the constitution.

The prototypical example that Lessig describes is the development of precedent around requiring a warrant for a wiretap under the 4th amendment protections against unreasonable search and seizure. The point being that the framers could not have anticipated the interpretational question about whether or not a wiretap constituted a "search" or not, and so there's no completely objective way of trying to extrapolate a position on the question merely from the text.

Analogously, I feel like the internet and changes in communication technology certainly have created a world that is so different from the one the framers inhabited that it's not clear exactly how they would have thought about free speech if they'd lived today. It's not clear that the costs and benefits of various regimes aren't much different than they were. Particularly, the social costs of some kinds of speech seem potentially much higher just because mass communication is so much more efficient, both for traditional media entities and also via social media and the like. So I think that consideration at least makes it an interesting topic to think about, even if you're (rightly, I think) very cautious about restricting speech rights.

And to reiterate that it's not all about social media, I think it's worth asking what would the world be like if Fox News had always been held to higher standards of truth in its broadcasting by tighter regulations? I'm guessing that is more consequential to the state of American politics in 2019 than Facebook. I don't know if the tradeoffs would have been worth it, and I'm not saying there aren't also costs of regulation. But it's interesting.

The broad liberty as interpreted in the U.S. Constitution is the freedom of expression – for example, you can burn the American Flag as a protest and that is “protected speech”. This very important freedom of expression extends into many fields of Human Endeavour – all forms of art, movies, literature, and all forms of published media, whether a platform on internet social media or not, and even extends into scientific inquiry and methodology. So to make this a simple and not over long or detailed post, I’ll just consolidate my objects to the proposed restrictions on free expression to a few generalities and some specifics.

As a broadside in opposition to, what I consider are the very draconian proposals of, say, Chez, is; what is precisely meant and what is interpreted as hate speech and what does it exactly constitute in a social context and how is it legally defined? And this same question can be applied to, as the example given above, about climate change denial, or a simple discussion of the topic, and can this curtailing of expression be applied to any set of beliefs? Are people proposing giving jail time because some person X denies climate change? If I deny Scientology* as bogus and run by charlatans, am I in danger of prosecution for blasphemy and given jail time or be forced into some form of re-education class?

To exemplify this dangerous precedent, I’ll simple point to blasphemy laws, past and current, and also give the example of Salman Rushdie. If you are unfamiliar with these examples, I suggest reading the book Joseph Anton by S. Rushdie, or read current proposals by the UN and others (including the EU) on curtailing freedom of expression.

The repercussions of curtailing freedom of expression are very detailed and a single post can hardly begin to discuss all the ramifications. But a general reading on the subject and knowledge of the history of freedom of thought and expression and the struggles for this hard won liberty throughout human history should be sufficient to give pause to those that wish to reverse a trend that all can enjoy and benefit from. Oh, and remember Socrates. And not just him – it was his accusers that were the more dangerous.

* Scientology is considered an established religion in the U.S., it is not a cult.

PS. And the very existence of this thread is an excellent proof against what some are actually proposing!

And I deliberately curbed my sarcasm about the very titled of this thread. Johnathan Swift would not have.

Addendum/clarification: Scientology is "an established religion" for purposes of the IRS. Not a state established church. Such things do not exist in the U.S. It is against the US constitution. Which Chez can burn at his leisure.

I feel I understand the "free speech is necessary to guard against tyranny" argument, and 5 years ago I would have been driving the bandwagon. However, personal safety and social cohesion are also necessary components for a functional society, and at some point (and we may already be at this point) the costs of absolute free speech may outweigh the benefits.

I think social norms are like evolutionary adaptations. Environment matters, and what works in one environment may not work well in another. And our environment (especially as it pertains to the ability of bad actors to spread bad information in sophisticated, persuasive ways) has changed radically in a very short period of time; and our social norms surrounding free speech may need to adapt accordingly.

I think it is probably a bad idea to treat anything written hundreds or thousands of years ago as revealed truth independent of time and place (environment); whether it be the US Constitution, the Talmud or Koran.

How we can mechanistically go about this in a responsible, effective way, I don't really have any good idea. And if noone can come up with one, maybe that is a reason in itself to leave things the way they are. I dunno.

Edit: I think I basically am saying the same thing as WN and Chez, except not as carefully or eloquently and with slightly less words (although not much less)

Pretty much this. The rise of the far right in Europe, which has actually risen enough to take over several EU countries and is still rising, is partly a result of mainstream freedom of speech being restricted both by the government and left wing social shaming, on topics like immigration and the desirability of various cultures and religions, topics which a populace has a legitimate right to discuss even if the preference is uncomfortable and unkind/exclusionary.

It's also a result of the policy disasters (especially for women) which resulted from NOT having a robust realistic debate over whether it was good social policy to invite millions of fit young men from cultures which have deeply ingrained, highly patriarchal, disrespectful attitudes toward women.

The National Socialist Party of Germany (Nazi Party) also had its big break when the state attempted to censor them; before then they were far fringe; after the event, they got a large sympathetic vote and became more mainstream.

Censor and shame at your peril imo. The effect is often the opposite to that hoped...societies that don't robustly and broadly discuss without fear of shame and censure are less healthy and less connected to reality.

Taking extreme examples, you think that alt right and Muslim extremist online communities should be allowed to flourish unrestrained, and attempts to suppress them will inexorably open the door to tyranny?

And by alt right I am not talking about communities such as this, which many leftists brand alt right in bad faith. I am talking about the communities that dont like Trump because they think he is too much of a Jew lover.

Hard right groups were naturally dying out long before SJWs came on the scene and started policing normal people's speech/claiming structural racism. If anything stupid unchecked left wing policies and attempted speech policing have led to a resurgence of the far right.

To take a very broad view, I think we're not smart enough to know what the effects are of restricting speech, and that it's quite obviously true that the cultures with the most liberal policies on what you can say are the healthiest ones by far, who've also done the most to advance human rights. Why change things now?

The fundamental commitment to the concept of freedom of speech had a lot to do with the ability of disadvantaged groups to pull themselves out of their situation. There has always been a cost associated with freedom of speech and there has always been a desire on the part of one group or another to restrict it for "the greater good". I believe that is a mistake and that freedom of speech should always be considered a bedrock principle of a truly healthy democratic system.

That Europe has again moved away from that principle is a cause for alarm, not an example to be emulated. European thought should always be respected and considered, but among other things two world wars should have taught us that Europe does not always get it right.

I view free speech as a means to an end with the main end being the discovery of truth. So while not saying we should, I don’t have a fundamental issue with censoring what is a known falsehood. The problem there however is determining what qualifies as a known falsehood.

FWIW, "we're doing this for your protection" is a standard excuse used by the oppressor.

IMO, you don't defeat evil by driving it into the shadows.

Lol, revisit free speech.

That's impossible in the white male oppressive patriarchy we currently live in...

Totally anonymous free speech is a new animal. At least at this scale.

You got trolled very hard.

Then how do we defeat the evils of maladaptive internet communities or propoganda driven news outlets that seem to directly foster violence?

Or do you believe they don’t constitute enough of a security threat to warrant action at all, given the costs of such action.

Who gets to determine what is considered "propaganda"? This is a powerful stick that is never wielded well.

I object to this speech. It's racist, sexist, exclusionary, and casts aspersions without evidence, in fact contrary to the evidence (it's a lock we don't live in a patriarchy by any reasonable definition of the word - contrast with 1800s Germany or most current Muslim countries as examples of actual patriarchies where females are actual second class citizens in law and in life; there is none in the West today).