“I believe you should kill yourself” is an opinion, even if it’s an opinion about someone conducting self harm, and it’s absolutely an opinion that should be censored
The problem with couching your understanding of ‘free speech’ within the american legal concept of free speech is that amendment doesn’t actually cover the types of speech and contexts under which most of its advocates are applying it to, nor should it. People deserve to be able to dictate the types of speech they allow in their own spaces, and that includes shit takes from reactionary shitheads on social media. Nazis should not be allowed to waltz into a jewish space and deny the holocaust - or rather, the people in that space should be able to kick that nazi out of their fucking community. It’s why reddit can get away with censoring speech relating to Musk and Luigi, and it’s why various lemmy instances might periodically tell you to get fucked for your various terrible opinions.
Free speech absolutists are some of the worst kinds of internet people.
I mean, so you’re saying people shouldn’t have the ability to remove people from their spaces as long as their not outright calling for violence or getting physical? I’m not talking about some type of government intervention, but private groups or spaces in this context.
Edit: Also, you say calls to violence aren’t free speech, but I’ve met plenty of absolutionists who disagree. You are drawing a line there, saying that. There are also various degrees between wishing ill on someone and an outright call to violence that is decided by the audience receiving it. I don’t think the above user telling you that you kill yourself is a call to violence for example but many would disagree there.
You make fair points. Nah private spaces can do whatever they want. You would kick someone out of your house if they were saying things you vehemently disagreed with or found offensive.
Places like Lemmy, reddit, twitter and so on are ostensibly the modern “public square”. So curtailing certain speech becomes a bit more complicated in my opinion. It’s not quite like the cake shop situation as that is a private place of business.
Whether or not you believe places like Lemmy and reddit should be treated as basically “public spaces” is up to you. Honestly I could go both ways on it. It’s complicated.
As for the free speechers and the different specifics at the tiny detail level I don’t really have a good answer for you honestly. I personally operate under the same levels of freedom of speech that the US government has. And they do have exceptions for various things and you could absolutely make the argument that a true freedom of speech believer wouldn’t allow any limitations to be placed on it in any way. That’s a conversation I have had with friends many times. Unfortunately we never really come to any concrete conclusions on it.
I disagree that they are the modern public square, in the loosest sense, especially in cases such as Lemmy that are instanced. You aren’t blocked from the whole of Lemmy, you’re blocked from a particular instance but still able to access a lot of it. If anything, it’s closer to a publicly accessible private space: if I have a garage sale and I’m letting people look around, it’s publicly accessible but still not in the public domain. I have different opinions for nationalized sectors, i.e., if Twitter were bought by the U.S. government, but that’s more so due to a distrust of government power than a sense of free speech absolutionism. A lot of Hexbear are folks who are disproportionately harassed by people who typically abuse the more idealist leanings of free speech idealism and have suffered continuous distress from that, so I’m not particularly surprised you’re met with hostility from folks here .
It isn’t an issue for me, I just wanted to float some reasons that liberal idealism tends to meet strong resistance here. There are more pragmatic reasons for the stances taken as well, which with my current understanding, I agree with. But frankly, I’m currently too drunk and too behind on theory to be a good source to articulate it. Assuming you aren’t banned on my instance and I remember through my ADHD deluge, I might circle back on this in the future and explain further.
Oh but I so really do. Literally read all the specific exceptions to Americans freedom of speech with my friends last night because all of us knew some of the exceptions but none of us knew all of them. There are quite a few more limitations than most are aware.
“I believe you should kill yourself” is an opinion, even if it’s an opinion about someone conducting self harm, and it’s absolutely an opinion that should be censored
The problem with couching your understanding of ‘free speech’ within the american legal concept of free speech is that amendment doesn’t actually cover the types of speech and contexts under which most of its advocates are applying it to, nor should it. People deserve to be able to dictate the types of speech they allow in their own spaces, and that includes shit takes from reactionary shitheads on social media. Nazis should not be allowed to waltz into a jewish space and deny the holocaust - or rather, the people in that space should be able to kick that nazi out of their fucking community. It’s why reddit can get away with censoring speech relating to Musk and Luigi, and it’s why various lemmy instances might periodically tell you to get fucked for your various terrible opinions.
Free speech absolutists are some of the worst kinds of internet people.
Agree to disagree I guess. I don’t think anyone else should be able to tell you or me what we are allowed to say at any point.
I think your viewpoint is incredibly dangerous and short sighted but I am glad you are able to express that opinion.
I mean, so you’re saying people shouldn’t have the ability to remove people from their spaces as long as their not outright calling for violence or getting physical? I’m not talking about some type of government intervention, but private groups or spaces in this context.
Edit: Also, you say calls to violence aren’t free speech, but I’ve met plenty of absolutionists who disagree. You are drawing a line there, saying that. There are also various degrees between wishing ill on someone and an outright call to violence that is decided by the audience receiving it. I don’t think the above user telling you that you kill yourself is a call to violence for example but many would disagree there.
You make fair points. Nah private spaces can do whatever they want. You would kick someone out of your house if they were saying things you vehemently disagreed with or found offensive.
Places like Lemmy, reddit, twitter and so on are ostensibly the modern “public square”. So curtailing certain speech becomes a bit more complicated in my opinion. It’s not quite like the cake shop situation as that is a private place of business.
Whether or not you believe places like Lemmy and reddit should be treated as basically “public spaces” is up to you. Honestly I could go both ways on it. It’s complicated.
As for the free speechers and the different specifics at the tiny detail level I don’t really have a good answer for you honestly. I personally operate under the same levels of freedom of speech that the US government has. And they do have exceptions for various things and you could absolutely make the argument that a true freedom of speech believer wouldn’t allow any limitations to be placed on it in any way. That’s a conversation I have had with friends many times. Unfortunately we never really come to any concrete conclusions on it.
I disagree that they are the modern public square, in the loosest sense, especially in cases such as Lemmy that are instanced. You aren’t blocked from the whole of Lemmy, you’re blocked from a particular instance but still able to access a lot of it. If anything, it’s closer to a publicly accessible private space: if I have a garage sale and I’m letting people look around, it’s publicly accessible but still not in the public domain. I have different opinions for nationalized sectors, i.e., if Twitter were bought by the U.S. government, but that’s more so due to a distrust of government power than a sense of free speech absolutionism. A lot of Hexbear are folks who are disproportionately harassed by people who typically abuse the more idealist leanings of free speech idealism and have suffered continuous distress from that, so I’m not particularly surprised you’re met with hostility from folks here
.
I’m used to it. I don’t really take any of it personally. I appreciate your conversation.
It isn’t an issue for me, I just wanted to float some reasons that liberal idealism tends to meet strong resistance here. There are more pragmatic reasons for the stances taken as well, which with my current understanding, I agree with. But frankly, I’m currently too drunk and too behind on theory to be a good source to articulate it. Assuming you aren’t banned on my instance and I remember through my ADHD deluge, I might circle back on this in the future and explain further.
I’m not convinced you actually understand what the american constitutional free speech principle is meant to address.
Oh but I so really do. Literally read all the specific exceptions to Americans freedom of speech with my friends last night because all of us knew some of the exceptions but none of us knew all of them. There are quite a few more limitations than most are aware.