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Comment by sparkzilla | Hacker News Reader

When people say "I'm all for freedom of speech, but..." it means they aren't actually for freedom of speech at all. In your case it seems you are willing to curtail a broadcaster's speech because of your arbitrary rule that some of that person's followers may have threatened violence or sent death threats. Alex Jones has indulged in conspiracy theories, but as far as I know he has not called for violence or anyone's death. If we apply your rule, then how do we deal with the many death threats against President Trump by ordinary people and even celebrities. Are we to ban their preferred newspapers, TV and YouTube channels too? After all, where could they have got such an idea? If your standard was applied consistently then then there would be no media.

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>In your case it seems you are willing to curtail a broadcaster's speech because of your arbitrary rule that some of that person's followers may have threatened violence or sent death threats.

To be fair, that's not an "arbitrary rule" that kylesellas just made up. Censorship of speech which threatens or advocates violence is commonly accepted as a limitation to free speech necessary for maintaining civil society, and the premise is codified in law throughout the world.

>If your standard was applied consistently then then there would be no media.

The fact that the standard exists and that media also exists would imply that your definition of 'consistent application' isn't relevant.

There is no legal standard by which a broadcaster who doesn't incite violence can be held accountable by their followers who commit or threaten violence.

Brandenburg v. Ohio and Dennis v. United States provide a pretty clear legal standard for this:

"The constitutional guarantees of free speech and free press do not permit a State to forbid or proscribe advocacy of the use of force or of law violation except where such advocacy is directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action."

https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/395/444

Twitter, of course, is not the State and can do what they want.

But if the State censored or in someway punished Jones, they would have to demonstrate that his speech constituted "inciting" "imminent" "lawless action." And there have been several cases since which have focused mostly on the "imminent" part.

When people say "I'm all for freedom of speech, but..." it means they aren't actually for freedom of speech at all.

Absolutism is poison.

100%

Tell that to the Founding Fathers.

You mean, in many cases, the people that wrote the Alien and Sedition Acts?

Yeah, I'm pretty sure they weren't free speech absolutists.

And yet we still have the First Amendment.

The ones who said "All Men Are Created Equal", but really just meant landowning white males? And who explicitly defined the worth of a slave to be 3/5 of a non-slave?

You are mistating the 3/5 compromise, which does not define the worth of a slave as 3/5 of a non-slave. Your version makes it sound as if it would be better if dishes were fully counted for apportionment, when that would be worse.

The compromise gives additional representation to the free citizens of a slave state equal based on 3/5 of the number of slaves, but if voting power is worth, then it is saying that worth of those who enslave is enhanced by the number enslaved. The slaves themselves, though, are not recognized having any worth.

The only sense in which the 3/5 compromise makes a slave worth 3/5 of a non-slave is that it makes the marginal increase in voting power a free citizen derived from an additional slave in the state 3/5 of what they receive from a disenfranchised non-slave. (IOW, Jim Crow and it's modern successors are 67% more politically effective for the disenfranchisers per disenfranchised person than actual slavery under the 3/5 compromise.)

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