This is a topic that's been kicking around in my brain for a while, and a comment in the Greenwald thread made me think maybe it would be an interesting topic. Apology in advance: this might be a bit of a Sklansky OP :P

But I have two thoughts, which might even be mutually contradictory:

1) Has technology changed so much that we should re-think the costs and benefits of various kinds of speech and speech restrictions?

I'm not an historian and I haven't put enough effort into verifying this, but my perception is that it's far more difficult for the government to completely control speech than it was in the 18th century (counterpoint: China?), and at the same time far easier for motivated individuals or groups to find a very large audience (Youtube, etc.) So in the 18th century I might think that the benefit of very strong limits on government control of speech -- especially political speech -- far outweighed the costs in terms of allowing various bad actors to influence the political process.

But is that still true? Do the benefits of protecting free speech rights for Fox News outweigh the social costs of Fox News? I'm thinking mostly of protecting the right to say things that are very demonstrably false or highly misleading, rather than the right to advocate for one set of values over another. Should there be more limits on the right to say things deceitfully?

A 2016 Atlantic piece put it like this:

I'm no longer sure that's really true. There is probably a similar argument for "hate speech" although I think accuracy and truth might be more important.

2) Does the 1st amendment's exclusive focus on government regulation of speech still make sense?

The comment in the Greenwald thread that prompted this post was about Alex Jones, but I would also refer back to Cloudflare's statement about dropping the Daily Stormer, which I thought made an interesting argument:

So I said these two ideas might be in conflict because on the one hand I'm thinking about shrinking free speech protections and on the other of expanding them to encompass actions of private companies. But to some extent that's because I think that if it's harder for governments to suppress speech now than it used to be, that's in large part because corporations have become enormously more powerful than they used to be.

Don't get me wrong, I think there are really good reasons to shut down Alex Jones and the Daily Stormer. Those are entirely defensible decisions and per (1) I might even argue that it would be better if the government could do it. But I'm still somewhat uncomfortable with corporations as quasi-governmental actors, although that's a much bigger problem (cf. "late stage capitalism" :P) than just a question of speech protections. But that is the point of thinking about due process as being more important than speech.

I am curious what people think.

Not sure it matters, because the benefits of protecting free speech rights for CNN and the Washington Post outweigh the social costs of Fox News.

I actually like the laws involving free speech in Europe.

America sees free speech as an individual right and doesn't take into the impact of the speech on society. Many countries in Europe tend to focus on the latter more than America. It is consistent with America being a more individualistic country when compared to countries in Europe. That's why many European countries have bans on hate speech and Holocaust denial while America doesn't.

As for controlling speech, America controls it by giving police a near carte blanche to do as they wish with protesters and disregarding the 4th amendment. They don't need to make laws when the eye in the sky is watching everything we do.

Was discussed a fair bit in another place.

The right to unrestricted free speech doesn't make sense anymore. It was key when disseminating information was slow, expensive and relatively easy to block by authorities. It's gone way the other way now, freedom of speech isn't protection from authoritarianism any more as a government would already have to be authoritarian before it could block speech sufficiently effectively.

Now the problem is overwhelmingly the easy spread of disinformation, hatred etc.

I'm pretty much a free speech absolutist. You don't fight fascism with fascism imo. The government must not be deciding what kind of speech is acceptable or not. When it does happen you get a lot more stuff like Ag-gag laws, or the bi-partisan bill to criminalize advocating any boycott of Israel, than you get stuff like protection from hate speech.

And as I just mentioned in the other thread - if a private company's power is a rival to government power and a threat to society and liberty in general, then break up the company. The right to speech is fundamental. The right for fictions (companies) to have unlimited property and power is not.

Also, I think having this type of debate or pretty much any kind of debate in good faith is pretty much impossible in this forum and I don't have high expectations for this thread.

Democratically accountable government making rules and regulations is not fascism. It's democracy.

Tyranny and Democracy are not necessarily antithetical.

It's bizarre that anyone on the left imagines that intrusions on the right to free speech wouldn't primarily be used in support of power.

I think Canada/Europe are doing better with respect to this in most cases for a reason. We've seen the results.

Maybe but it does not make actual laws tyrannical just because laws could be tyrannical. i.e restrictions on hate speech is not tyrannical or fascist in itself. It's a perfectly reasonable thing for a democracy to do.

In the past, yes but these days the in countries like Germany and the uk, I just don't see it. The risks we face are not the government enacting effective speech laws to protect themselves.

The day that one of the tech behemoths finally does a single god damned thing about having deliberately fostered the rise of fascism is definitely the time to start hand wringing about free speech

I used to be fairly committed to strong speech rights, but I think my commitment has waned both in response to current events (obviously) but also just through studying sociology and anthropology, which has been a hobby the last few years. Because basically someone (someones really) is always deciding what is and is not acceptable speech. And it's always contentious. But I think its unavoidable in some sense, and the question is how might a society best negotiate some of these problems. It's not clear to me that government involvement is in every way worse than the status quo.

And of course we don't actually have an absolute right to speech. We already hold that government can properly regulate some speech. I assume that you aren't actually an absolutist, i.e. you are OK with laws against defamation, libel, incitement, and etc.

I'm not keen on there being some absolute and unaccountable power which dictates arbitrarily what is acceptable and what is not, but I brought up the idea that lies are protected speech because it seemed like an area where you can make an argument that we'd be better off if that were not so, while also preserving something like an objective criteria for determining acceptability, and where there is at least some potential to structure institutions to protect the fairness of evaluation of those criteria. My glib response to bobman then, on that point, would be that undermining Fox News' ability to lie with impunity only undermines CNN to the extent that they also lie.

I grant though that the politics of changing speech rights is completely untenable, and that there are real problems with making anyone an arbiter. But there are problems to having no arbiters also, as I think we can see. In any case, given that a constitutional change is completely untenable to begin with this is all just a thought experiment anyway, so I've worried less about implementation problems. I'm more just trying to think through what I think would make sense if I could have whatever laws I wanted.

I'm sympathetic to your feelings on that point but there wasn't anywhere else to put this :P Anyway, given that this is all either academic at best or wankery (on my part) at worst, I'm not too worried if it doesn't go anywhere. I'm not really looking for a debate, I'm just curious what people think because I'm not sure what I should think.

Have we? Alternative for Germany has 92 seats in the Bundestag and 158 in state parliaments.

Well named, I think you should first examine the premise of whether it is indeed far more difficult for governments to control free speech.

I am not sure this is at all true.

I don't agree. Government restriction on speech is tyrannical. It's pretty much 1st on the list of tyrannical things - hence it's place in the constitution - hence restrictions on it being the first thing any despot does.

If lies could actually be forbidden there could be no government. But if there were a law against lies, obviously you could have 2 + 2 = 5 be allowed while 2 + 2 = 4 is illegal. And to one degree or another, that is what you would have. At best what you get is when Josh Bartlet is elected it could be illegal to say hateful things about LGBT, but Trump is the one in office and the GOP has most of the states. What you get by relaxing speech protection is that it's illegal to say "mad cow disease" and BLM gets banned from all public forums.

Can't start from the constitution as premise. It was a decent effort centuries ago. The 2nd amendment is appalling these days and the 1st very questionable.

Why is it tyrannical for a government to rule against shouting 'P*** go home'* at some family? What makes that special compared to driving at 31mph?

*if that example don't count as speech then where do you draw the line?

The Right, the people in power and who have the ear of the POTUS, also would like to police hate speech and incitement. Just check out what Hannity or anyone like that says about Maxine Waters.

I don't doubt you. Can we clear one thing up. I think you may think that I don't have sufficient concern about our governments being tyrannical. I doubt that true or relevant here. I simply don't think that the right to free speech helps protect us from it - it's a piece of paper worth about as much as Chamberlain's was.

The USA and your point about Germany tend to, I claim, support my view that the right to free speech protects us from nothing. If the far right get a sufficient grip then it's worthless and if they don't then we don't need it.

tolerance leads to intolerance unfortunately as much as letting free speech be ideal.

Also doesn't help that 40% of the country want to change the first amendment to he who smelt it dealt it.

Your example doesnt really support your first argument that free speech protections enacted centuries ago are insufficient today.

In any case, there are other statutes that protects against the situation you described.

I guess the p-word there is a British slur for Pakistani?

They reason it's tyrannical is because the police arrest you when you say it. Maybe they bonk you on the head with a club (in the UK) or shoot you (in the USA) if they feel like it. And now it's a cop judging whether what you said is hateful or not. The cops all want the Pakistanis to get Brexited you know?

I take your point and it should definitely be part of the debate.

I'm offering the it as simple fact/premise that disseminating information is cheaper, faster and harder to stop then it was centuries ago. And that's it's not remotely close. Others may disagree but it's currently hard for me to see why.


I know that's why i put the *. Seems like a free speech issue to me but let's take another example

Someone repeatedly calls for a final solution to deal with 'the muslims'. What makes prohibiting that oppressive compared to prohibiting driving at 31mph?

lol, the guy who was okay with Nazis posting hate speech here thinks the 1st Amendment is too permissive.

Yep.

They arrest me if I drive dangerously as well (shifted slightly from something that can be measured objectively). The courts judge, not the cops. Sure they will use judgement and guidelines about hate speech but in the same sort of way as if I might be driving dangerously.

Sure there are problems with the justice system - not going to disagree with you there. That doesn't make hate speech laws more oppressive than driving laws.