Freedom of Speech is becoming dangerous

[MegaManTrigger]

Disclaimer: I am speaking from a health sciences POV (as I work in the field), I welcome all disciplines as I want this to be a stimulating conversation multiple perspectives instead of asinine emotional arguments like "HURR DURR MUH FREEDOMS."

The idea of free speech/freedom of speech has been viewed as fundamental to societies around the world. And with good reason. It enables us to share ideas and criticisms and has been recognized as a constitutional right in many countries. However, since the advent of the Trump administration, it seems like misinformation and towing the party line has been prioritized above objective facts and evidence-based information. We're seeing this right now in the Covid-19 pandemic. And it's making me wonder whether Freedom of Speech is truly a good thing like everyone makes it out to be.

Frankly, I think freedom of speech is more dangerous now than it's ever been in human history. The fact that someone can make such a ridiculous statement such as "Covid-19 does not exist" and then go off and do irresponsible things that can put others lives at risks (the amount of stories of how people went to parties and then went home sick and killed their entire family), is nothing short of reprehensible. And I think that these ideas need to be squashed out instead of festering and growing in prominence.

Now the immediate counter to what I said is usually along the lines of "are you advocating for censorship?"

And to be honest, I've been thinking about the answer. I honestly think there's no other choice than to scale back freedom of speech and introduce censorship to ideas that are demonstrably harmful, and irresponsible. I don't think that these people should have a platform to express their ideas because it doesn't have a positive contribution to society as a whole. I'm well aware about how censorship can be abused to ensure that government interests are kept intact.

TLDR; Freedom of Speech isn't an inherent good. And the more we progress, the more we see how dangerous some of the ideas expressed are. It feels like censorship is the logical next step to squash out these bad ideas but I'm conflicted. The net value of censorship seems to outweight the value of allowing people to express idiotic and harmful ideas.

What say you?

 

[MoxManiac]

There are already limits to freedom of speech. Yelling fire when there isn't one in a movie theater and all that. Maybe those exceptions need to be re-examined?

 

[Sign My Guestbook!]

Freedom of Speech has always had a caveat for dangerous and violence-inciting activity. Our problem is that we're taking so long to comprehend new forms of it. The right itself remains pretty fucking sacred.

 

[leberkas]

As a European, I've always thought Americans had a dangerous extremist view of freedom of speech.

It feels like the main goal should be to allow for a diversity in thought to take place, but without harming others. Things like hate speech shouldn't be protected, and imo, neither should anti-vax stuff.

The idea that money is speech is also ridiculous.

 

[Burly]

Surely this wont backfire on us in the future.

To expand a bit, the last 4 years should make it pretty evident that social contracts don't exist. Any system that can be exploited, eventually, will be.

 

[Davidion]

I'd argue freedom of speech isn't dangerous. Allowing to flourish a litter of idiots who's smart enough to say the word freedom but too stupid to understand what the word means is.

 

[Sunster]

edit: *opinion updated*

 

[Cat Party]

If censorship was allowed, I wonder what the guy who was president for the last four years would have been able to do?

 

[Richiek]

I agree that the First Amendment is not absolute. There's should be restrictions to hate speech and misinformation (Fox News, Facebook etc). We've seen how damaging this can get when we just let it fester.

 

[Dest]

Freedom of speech itself isn't dangerous. What is dangerous is the way that we consume information and how so many people take the first thing they see at face value. It isn't speech that's the issue, it's how easily people buy into any form of it.

 

[BrucCLea13k87]

No it isn't. The alternative is far more dangerous.

 

[Deleted member 44129]

The hijacking of "freedom of speech" by hateful bastards, bigots, racists, and conspiracy nutjobs has got the world by the balls. It's a dilemm, but we can never, for instance, tolerate intolerance.

 

[Mauricio_Magus]

Protect Freedom of Speech because you might want to limit it for the sake of something good but Fascist won't.

Work on improving education and critical thinking, that's all we can do.

 

[Dreams-Visions]

People have been lied to since the dawn of mankind.

Donald didn't change that truth; he just made it more on the nose than most politicians do.

See: the last 100 years of American foreign policy and the consequences of those actions. Contrast that with the general understanding of America's foreign policy history as told by your average person on the street.

 

[Deleted member 21709]

I think removing freedom of speech can only work in an idealized world where government and authority is never wrong.

 

[Sidebuster]

I think the intention was always supposed to be that a person could speak their mind without the fear of government retribution (being vocally critical of government actions or other things). Which is why there were even examples where free speech doesn't apply (yelling fire in a theater). It never promised to protect people from being shunned nor do I think it was supposed to protect bad actors for inciting violence and hate. It also shouldn't protect people from vocalizing things that aren't true to the point that if spread could cause the society suffering.

What we have now is some perverted monkeys claw wish version of free speech.

 

[Deleted member 18944]

Freedom of Speech isn't the problem.

Saying "covid doesn't exist" isn't the problem.

The problem is with, but not limited to:

• The education system
• Lack of social consequences
• Capitalism monetizing outrage and turning news covered into sports coverage
• Capitalism
• Did I mention capitalism?

If your population isn't educated, people are not confident with knowing, and in turn do not value intelligence, but instead value novelty, because the latter is instant gratification where the former is an invisible overtime benefit.

With people not properly educated, and with capitalism turning news into sports, there is not a demand in education, growing as a person, and altering opinions when new evidence is presented, but with winning the fight.

It all just comes back to capitalism and its exploitation of literally everything for profit.

 

[Mr. Wonderful]

Freedom of speech isn't freedom to publish. Simple as that, really.

 

[Revolver_Ocelot]

Surely this wont backfire on us in the future.

Click to shrink...

^

One must always be careful when considering something in the short term that will have greater ramifications in the long term.
*cough*PatriotAct*cough*

 

[QisTopTier]

No it isn't. The alternative is far more dangerous.

Click to shrink...

Correct.

You are literally asking for fascism op.

Education is key.


Plus there are already things in place that have been building up over time in our justice system. The stuff might not be spelled out for you but plenty of things come back to bite people in the ass.

 

[VeryHighlander]

There are laws against saying harmful shit in real life. There needs to be rules and regulations for the internet specifically about spreading disinformation especially the kind of lies that are harmful. It's surprising to me that the internet took so long to become the confirmation bias library for wackos, it's basically the same unregulated Wild West internet of the early 2ks. Except now the entire planet is plugged in.

 

[Tawpgun]

My biggest concern here is don't start limiting freedoms just because we are in unprecedented times. We will be out of covid soon. Don't draft laws that will be permanent after covid is over.

 

[Beef Supreme]

I will defend this freedom to my dying breath. If you think it's dangerous now, wait till you are without it.

This isn't no "America fuck yea" thing. This is the freedom that every living soul on this Earth should be entitled to. No matter if you agree or disagree with what they're saying.

 

[UltraMav]

Freedom of speech is important. So important it became the first fucking amendment. The government should not have control over the things you say, period. However, we have reached a point that so many lies have been allowed to prosper, that it is incumbent among citizens to call out the bullshit. If we cannot stem the tide of disinformation, then we have failed as a society.

 

[onadesertedisland]

Social media broke the social norm where insane speech was derided until it was quiet.

 

[Deleted member 4461]

Surely this wont backfire on us in the future.

Click to shrink...

I get the feeling that almost everyone in this country wants us to go backwards in very different ways.

My biggest concern here is don't start limiting freedoms just because we are in unprecedented times. We will be out of covid soon. Don't draft laws that will be permanent after covid is over.

Click to shrink...

I've taken to heart a saying by my friend - that anything we do can be used by the other side eventually. Give me any system, any freedom, any limitation and I can tell you at least one way it will be abused in the future for evil.

(...Have I become nihilistic?)

 

[Richiek]

I will defend this freedom to my dying breath. If you think it's dangerous now, wait till you are without it.

This isn't no "America fuck yea" thing. This is the freedom that every living soul on this Earth should be entitled to. No matter if you agree or disagree with what they're saying.

Click to shrink...

Do you agree with yelling "Fire" in a crowded movie theater?

It should be note that European democracies have laws against hate speech and Holocaust denial.

 

[MegaManTrigger]

My problem with the people saying that it's incumbent upon people to call out the misinformation is that these people are unwilling to listen or follow the rules. We quite literally have precedent right now: try and tell an anti-masker that they need to wear a mask, and they will immediately escalate to violence.

We're not living in an ideal world where people are rational and willing to listen to your point of view, let alone, understand why their ideas are wrong.

No it isn't. The alternative is far more dangerous.

Click to shrink...

I fail to see how the alternative is far more dangerous.

People now abuse freedom of speech to:
1) create hate speech bubbles (Trump admin has been doing this for the last 4 years with their rallies, whether it's making fun of disabled people, or conducting and promoting policies that are quite clearly discriminatory).
2) make anti-scientific statements that literally put people's lives at risk or results in their deaths. This then makes public health efforts extremely difficult (case in point, look at the anti-vax/anti-lockdown movements).
3) Weaponize "fake news" to destroy another person in a targeted effort.

 

[samoyed]

This is more of a problem of freedom of business than freedom of speech. And you make the same mistake everyone else does, that anything the market decides must be valid, the market has decided virus denial is profitable and rather than conclude "we must ban virus profiteering" you have concluded "we need to rethink freedom of speech".

It is easier to imagine an end to the world than an end to capitalism.

Click to shrink...

Facebook and friends entirely have the capability to shut down COVID denial, they choose not to for business reasons. That is all.

Facebook Struggles to Balance Civility and Growth (Published 2020)

Employees and executives are battling over how to reduce misinformation and hate speech without hurting the company’s bottom line.

www.nytimes.com

So the team trained a machine-learning algorithm to predict posts that users would consider "bad for the world" and demote them in news feeds. In early tests, the new algorithm successfully reduced the visibility of objectionable content. But it also lowered the number of times users opened Facebook, an internal metric known as "sessions" that executives monitor closely.

"The results were good except that it led to a decrease in sessions, which motivated us to try a different approach," according to a summary of the results, which was posted to Facebook's internal network and reviewed by The Times.

Click to shrink...

Note, I'm not accusing you of some intolerable sin. Like I said, most people think everything the market decides is justifiable so you are not being particularly antagonistic here. Most people would question freedom of speech before questioning freedom of business. That is one of the reasons capitalism is so insidious, it tries its best to be invisible and turns your attention to other targets.

 

[nsilvias]

It's not a freedom of speech issue. It's an issue of poor education and lack of regulation of social media

 

[SnakeXs]

Freedom of Speech isn't the problem.

Saying "covid doesn't exist" isn't the problem.

The problem is with, but not limited to:

• The education system
• Lack of social consequences
• Capitalism monetizing outrage and turning news covered into sports coverage
• Capitalism
• Did I mention capitalism?

If your population isn't educated, people are not confident with knowing, and in turn do not value intelligence, but instead value novelty, because the latter is instant gratification where the former is an invisible overtime benefit.

With people not properly educated, and with capitalism turning news into sports, there is not a demand in education, growing as a person, and altering opinions when new evidence is presented, but with winning the fight.

It all just comes back to capitalism and its exploitation of literally everything for profit.

Click to shrink...

Thank you for exercising your deeply important 1st Amendment Right with this.

FoS is necessary, warts and all. FoS doesn't entail the right to say and do anything without consequence. Limiting FoS will do nothing to address our most dire, imminent issues. It's like saying maybe we should drink kombucha once diagnosed with cancer.

 

[leberkas]

This isn't no "America fuck yea" thing. This is the freedom that every living soul on this Earth should be entitled to. No matter if you agree or disagree with what they're saying.

Click to shrink...

I think that's where you're wrong. This is definitely an "America fuck yea" thing. Other countries set reasonable limits to speech to limit harm to society, it's only Americans who think they should be free to say literally anything for some reason.
For example, here's how Germany handles it:

material that is considered anti-constitutional, dangerous to the state. The underlying concept is "streitbare Demokratie" (self-defending democracy) that legally hinders the rise of all anti-constitutional and thus undemocratic movements. The media concerned are banned outright, with criminal penalties for infringements. An example is the outright ban on material which supports National Socialism.

Click to shrink...

Censorship in the Federal Republic of Germany - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Would you argue Germany is not a free country?

 

[Deleted member 4461]

My problem with the people saying that it's incumbent upon people to call out the misinformation is that these people are unwilling to listen or follow the rules. We quite literally have precedent right now: try and tell an anti-masker that they need to wear a mask, and they will immediately escalate to violence.

We're not living in an ideal world where people are rational and willing to listen to your point of view, let alone, understand why their ideas are wrong.



I fail to see how the alternative is far more dangerous.

People now abuse freedom of speech to:
1) create hate speech bubbles (Trump admin has been doing this for the last 4 years with their rallies, whether it's making fun of disabled people, or conducting and promoting policies that are quite clearly discriminatory).
2) make anti-scientific statements that literally put people's lives at risk or results in their deaths. This then makes public health efforts extremely difficult (case in point, look at the anti-vax/anti-lockdown movements).
3) Weaponize "fake news" to destroy another person in a targeted effort.

Click to shrink...

1) Who defines what hate speech is?
2) Science changes - is a statement unlawful if it's "wrong" at the time it's made but correct later on?
3) Actually not sure what you mean about this one. Is this not covered by slander laws?

Also, think carefully on what the punishment is, too. Any fine means that poor people get punished. Jail time is SO RIPE for abuse.

 

[Sou Da]

get a better title. this shit is screencap bait

 

[sorryaboutdresden]

This reminds me of when I used to think the president needed to have more power In our system. Sounds good on paper but definitely would get abused.

 

[Dekuman]

I like my freedom of speech.

 

[The Silver]

Humans weren't equipped for an unfiltered global communications system like the internet. Post truth reality is quickly spreading like wildfire. Trying to wrangle it in and control it like a China or NK is no solution either, it's worse. Companies won't wrangle themselves in for capitalist reasons, and even if they do start to try it'll be far too late.

Gonna need an A.I. like the Patriots from MGS to control and filter information and context. All up until it decides to turn on us and we're doomed.

 

[Sunster]

get a better title. this shit is screencap bait

Click to shrink...

I'm sure it's already been picked up on some dark corner of the internet lmao

 

[Zen]

Freedom of Speech only means you can't be jailed by the government for what you say. It doesn't mean you can say anything you want and not face consequences for them.

 

[Skel1ingt0n]

I'm a firm believer in the most broad, sweeping protections toward freedom of speech. The intent of freedom of speech is to protect the most vile, hateful, disdainful, ugly, ignorant commentary there is along with anything else. It is designed to protect the most unpopular of unpopular opinions and statements.

Now, of course, I'm all for appropriate consequence of what one might say. Those consequences just can't be jail time. But I would never, ever push for removal of speech protections.

 

[deimosmasque]

There are already limits to freedom of speech. Yelling fire when there isn't one in a movie theater and all that. Maybe those exceptions need to be re-examined?

Click to shrink...

Actually the yelling fire thing isn't true.

 

[Chadtwo]

Who is the arbiter of what counts as "demonstrably harmful" OP

 

[Sidebuster]

"it's not a free speech issue it's an education/weath issue"

Ah yes, as we all know, there are no well off and educated fascists. Once they learn about the holocaust, the hate goes away.

 

[DarthMasta]

Your issue isn't with freedom of speech, it's with humans not being very rational. We're just as rational as we need to be, being rational is expensive in evolutionary terms, our brain is full of kludges to allow us to work mostly on auto-pilot, all of that.

And you can't legislate that away, wrong ideas will always spread one way or another, and I don't see how you can stop the wrong ideas from spreading while allowing the right ideas to spread.

 

[MegaManTrigger]

Re: poor education

You guys do realize that prominent and "educated" voices have also spread misinformation? If the education point was true then we wouldn't have documentaries like "Plandemic," or people in positions of power within Government playing the blame game with respect to China (and thereby ignoring their own public health measures).

Misinformation doesn't give a shit about your educational upbringing.

This is more of a problem of freedom of business than freedom of speech. And you make the same mistake everyone else does, that anything the market decides must be valid, the market has decided virus denial is profitable and rather than conclude "we must ban virus profiteering" you have concluded "we need to rethink freedom of speech".

Facebook and friends entirely have the capability to shut down COVID denial, they choose not to for business reasons. That is all.

Facebook Struggles to Balance Civility and Growth (Published 2020)

Employees and executives are battling over how to reduce misinformation and hate speech without hurting the company’s bottom line.

www.nytimes.com

Click to shrink...

I did not make the argument with a business context, so I'm not sure why you readily assumed that. In fact, I specifically mentioned that I was approaching this from a health science angle. The thing is, you are making the assumption that this is driven only by profit, when in actuality, there are people who believe in this. It's possible to both profit on what you say and also believe in what you say.

Regarding the point about social media, I don't understand why you are ready to trust them with the ability to suddenly sweep these posts of misinformation away at the snap of a thumb. This is one instance where I would support heavy regulation because Twitter, Facebook, etc. sure took their sweet ass time before flagging posts as dangerous. And even then, they take so long to do it that the damage ends up already being done.

 

[Martinski]

It's ignorance and lack of an educated mind that's the problem.

 

[Nessii013]

Regulating this type of stuff could very easily become a slippery slope, but recent events have made me wonder what sorts of regulations should be had on speech, at least speech that can reach a large number of people. As others have mentioned, there are already regulations/consequences around threats of violence or around media that is broadcast to large amounts of people.

Second EC video of the day for posting, but they have a decent extra politics video on exactly this:


Not to say that their answer is right or that they have it figured out, but it's something people will need to start thinking about, as the whole "Don't believe everything you hear on the internet" guidance of the 90s-00s has been largely thrown out the window sadly. I think the first step to that however would be to have a government that acts based on the will of ALL the people, and at least in the US there are some issues that need fixing.

 

[Sidebuster]

Who is the arbiter of what counts as "demonstrably harmful" OP

Click to shrink...

A hot little group called... WE THE PEOPLE! Like the ones that decided we shouldn't use lead or asbestos in construction. Or that we shouldn't use kids to work in factories.

 

[Shining Star]

I agree, it's one of those things like being able to own guns that might have made sense in the 40s when they made the constitution but it doesn't really work now in 2020.

 

[QisTopTier]

I agree, it's one of those things like being able to own guns that might have made sense in the 40s when they made the constitution but it doesn't really work now in 2020.

Click to shrink...

What?