Free Speech Defenders Don’t Understand the Critique Against Them

https://arcdigital.media/free-speech-defenders-dont-understand-the-critique-against-them-4ed8327c0879

by rstarast • 6 years ago

5 3 6 years ago

I'll summarize this article.

"You say you want free speech, but it is free speech and expression for us to decide and exclude you from our society both economically and socially".

Probably interesting things could have been said and investigated but none of that is to be found. I also find this article confuses countries just to make a point about hypocrisy, for example Jordan Peterson can get away with suing for defamation in the commonwealth because no other country except the US has real freedom of speech/expression laws. In the commonwealth you can just claim you were defamed and the onus is on the defendent to prove they didn't defame you. There was already a famous case about this involving some holocaust denying author who sued a critic and the federal government (note: not US government, we're talking about foreign countries) came down on this critic with the full force of unlimited resources and power forcing them to defend their criticism.

If you write an article like this it would be nice to try and run test cases against your own hypothesis that it is freedom of expression for a vocal majority to exclude somebody economically and socially they disagree with, like what if the comments were socially acceptable when they were made, but no longer are, should you still be removed from society and is this still freedom of expression. Classic example that could have been used is politicians signing petitions in their naive young past that are now socially unacceptable, which are brought out in the current political climate and used as a weapon. Another hypothesis that could have been explored is what if the current social climate is overtly racist, like it's acceptable to hate a specific group, then is it still freedom of expression to cancel that hated group from society using Rwanda as an example and numerous other ethnic conflicts.

tl;dr it would be nice if somebody put some rigor into these kind of articles, like negating your hypothesis and seeing if your claim still holds ie: some signal in the noise. It would also be nice if these author's at least read Orwell's classic essay on how to do political writing: https://www.orwell.ru/library/essays/politics/english/e_poli... while you read this article, look for tired methaphor's like 'preach to the choir'.

tssva• 6 years ago

I encourage everyone to read the article themselves because this summarization of the article is incomplete and misses the actual point of the article.

hackermailman2• 6 years ago

I assume everybody reads articles here yo. The authors proposition is spelled out "You say you value free speech and oppose social penalties for bad speech, but your actions show that you don’t. You value free speech for you and people who agree with you and oppose social penalties for expressing things you agree with. You’re open to disagreement on some topics, sure, but when it comes to things that are important to you, social penalties for speech you identify as bad — such as “Bari Weiss sucks” — are not just acceptable, but good, something to be proud of, something to broadcast on a public forum so others know that you did it, encouraging them to do it too." but his arguement is actually my summary.

But then my summary stands when he summarizes: "It's drawing the lines of socially acceptable expression" and claims an angry mob coming after you is indeed what the definition of free expression is and comes with the territory of a free society. My snarky Orwell comment still stands too with his "social penalties" newspeak.

Free Speech Defenders Don’t Understand the Critique Against Them

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