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Comment by wGeF7H8Z59y985y | Hacker News Reader

> Why should someone interact with something that the author doesn't throw his/her/their name into?

We currently live in a "there is only one correct opinion, all others must be canceled" culture. They've already come for anyone who showed even the faintest trace of dissent from the mindlessly woke mob's narrative. Next they'll come for those who have stayed silent. Failure to project virtue signaling will soon be used to deny employment and participation in other aspects of society. Just you wait.

Anonymity is a risk mitigation technique that speaks to the very real desire to keep speech free. If speech has consequences that are administered outside the law, then it's not really free.

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> We currently live in a "there is only one correct opinion, all others must be canceled" culture.

I fully blame twitter (and the medias obsession with it) for this.

This is a problem that probably existed before writing itself, never mind Twitter.

Cf. The Scarlet Letter from 1850:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Scarlet_Letter

It's not new. It was huge when religion was more prevalent, for example, but it was becoming less of a problem as society became more educated and secular. Now there's a new wave riding on top of social media like Twitter, and as it gains more popularity it's becoming more about flaming vs virtue signalling than making actual progress.

> but it was becoming less of a problem as society became more educated and secular

The last generation of control freaks had figured out how to use religion as a medium for their desires. They were caught flat-footed by new internet media like everyone else.

The next generation have now learned how to use twitter. The basic tactics probably haven't changed that much but the details of the message are new. I doubt education was a driving issue as this is more an issue of personality types.

We all can get caught up in to some degree. Some of the change is great, but the snowballing effect of social media leads to some mistakes that get easily out of hand. Education hasn't been able to adapt fast enough to technology and has left people unprepared for this sort of thing. It's not that it's a driving issue but it hasn't been of help when ideally it would have.

Yeah, it's getting hard to tell what are real accounts. So many pose as a left/right wing person and spout a little too ridiculously.

> It was huge when religion was more prevalent, for example, but it was becoming less of a problem as society became more educated and secular.

Secularism vs religion is a red herring. Society became freer because people began to value (classically) liberal ideals--i.e., people came to value freedom as a principle. Liberalism is secular but secularism isn't liberal (nor is it inherently illiberal), and there have been many illiberal secular ideologies not only in theory, but in practice (e.g., practical communism of the 20th century wherein people were literally executed, imprisoned, exiled, etc for their free speech). And of course what we see today.

Secularism isn't a virtue, liberalism is.

Just like every thing else, this too was amplified by the internet.

If you said something controversial 40 years ago at a grocery shop, shop owner might be mad and refuse to service you, and might even put a bad word for you across the town. In the worst and rarest case, you might have had to leave town.

Now, anyone can record the interaction, put it in front of more people on twitter than the front-page of a big newspaper. And this amplifies things. Not to mention that it remains there forever for the whole wide world.

At this point in many places, you will be more quickly forgiven for taking cash from a shop's register than saying something which is not the prevalent opinion.

Anonymity solves the issue for the individual, and for the most part I believe it works. The problem is, this current culture of irrational, non-engaging echo-chamber woke cancellations is further propelled to the forefront when those unwilling to partake in the culture are either shamed or silenced.

Platforms like Twitter and Facebook don't make for constructive debate, discussions. There is an option to shore up support through likes, but not much the other way around. I think this explains the diaspora from the latter to the former, and says a lot about the future of Twitter itself (hint: people will move on.)

I do believe one day people will be more rational in handling beliefs and opinions positioned against them, and there are a multitude of valid reasons for one to assume anonymity, but we'd all benefit if we confronted the deeper problem instead, I feel.

And you have very active extremists in both sides, so it is guaranteed you are always wrong and always in danger of being cancelled.

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23789853.

Good grief. What happened to "Democrats are coming for your guns"? At least that one sorta made sense. Can you name three significant ideas whose debate has been suppressed online? Because I'll bet that for each of those I can find a 200+ comment flame war on this very site.

> They've already come for anyone who showed even the faintest trace of dissent from the mindlessly woke mob's narrative

They did? Who won?

James Damore certainly lost.

No, he was fired because he very loudly and publicly contradicted his employers' stated policies[1]. His ideas didn't "lose", not in the free speech sense everyone is yelling about. There's not a poster here who doesn't know what he said (we spent A LOT more than 200 comments on that one!).

Nor was he suppressed: he's still speaking, on the same subject! Hell, he's surely making more now as a right wing martyr than he ever was as a low level hacker for Google.

[1] I mean, people get fired for this all the time, like those folks Amazon canned a few months back for union organizing with employer resources. You only care about this one guy because he happens to play for Your Team.

What he posted was on an internal message board specifically for employees to discuss controversial subjects. It was only public because another google employee got upset and made it public.

I probably should have said "broadly", I guess. But I still don't see how that differs from the union folks, who used an internal messaging system to notify other employees about their rights.

Again, I can't help but think what you people really want is the inalienable right, not to "free speech", but to be Offensive Without Consequence. And again, Damore is a genuine celebrity now, he's a very bad example of the kind of repressive woke hegemony you're invoking.

It's an unhelpful exaggeration to suggest that speech is being suppressed in the conventional sense that the threat or use of coercion is being employed to restrict speech.

But we care not only about whether debate is suppressed. We also care about the quality of debate, the culture, values and practices through which we engage with one another in the public sphere.

The concern over 'cancel culture' would be, I think:

   (1) certain arguments are beyond the pale of legitimate debate

   (2) those arguments should not be engaged with, or their proponents persuaded, but should be met with opprobrium and abuse

   (3) we can safely infer that someone has a malignant character if they make an individual statement which is considered illegitimate

   (4) if someone makes an illegitimate statement then we should ostracise them, deplatform them, and agitate their employer to fire them

Obviously 'cancel culture' is internally varied, and this list presents some of its worst aspects, while ignoring what can be said in favour of it. But my point is that we can reasonably argue over several of its features. The problem as I see it is how to criticise unreflective and exclusionary discourses, while engaging in debate, persuading rather than abusing, avoiding heavy-handed retributivism, and thinking for ourselves.

It is also worth asking whether cancel culture is more of a problem online that it is offline because it is encouraged by the design of several platforms, most egregiously Twitter.

Are those list items really that bad, though? Paraphrasing #4: you're saying that we need to welcome, broadcast and hire people who we genuinely think are vile and awful?

Where's the middle ground. If we can't fire, say, violent racists, and we can't escape their words, and we can't avoid them socially, what can we do?

I think the answer to that, if you look at it carefully, is going to be pretty much isomorphic to what we're already doing. There are excesses and mistakes (David Shor shouldn't have been fired), but that's true of all things.

What I don't see is a definition of "cancel culture" as a "problem" that isn't basically a defense of conservative opinions.

I agree that its implicit values are generally egalitarian, or at least aspire to be egalitarian, but I don't think there's a clear left-right split. My concern is not that we shouldn't be egalitarians. I'm a socialist; my avatar is named after a famous anarchist. It's that there is a culture of debate - 'cancel culture' - that betrays several flaws.

Should we value debate and engage with those we disagree with or ignore their arguments and ostracise them? Should we persuade those we disagree with or tell them they're horrible people? Should we address ourselves to the causes of prejudice and small-mindedness, or retributively punish those who misstep? Debate, persuasion, and opposition to retributive justice - those are scarcely values that are the monopoly of the right, and indeed, the last one runs counter to the right.

You are focusing on 'easy cases'. You write, 'you're saying that we need to welcome, broadcast and hire people who we genuinely think are vile and awful?' But that presupposes the precise crux of the debate: whether most people targeted by 'cancel culture' really are, as you say, 'vile and awful'.

You say we should encourage the firing of 'violent racists'. I think that's a reasonable option, depending on the context. But that's an easy case. The kind of problems I highlighted are found arrayed against people of all political stripes, often for minor offences or errors.

I was reading a large number of people abuse a Guardian journalist this morning for including the owner of a Pizzeria in a write-up of how working-class life has been affected by COVID - a mistake, for sure, even a humorous one, but not one that should be met by abuse. The owner in question was being doxxed, and his restaurant down-voted on review sites. To me, this kind of case is entirely typical of cancel culture, not anti-fascism.

Clearly we should value debate. Clearly we "should" persuade people we disagree with. The question is whether we should be forced to.

If I'm an employer, should I be forced to hire people who I personally find unpersuadably vile? That's the "anti-cancel" position, right? I can't fire you, even if you're an asshole.

If I run a forum (like HN, or Reddit), I can't ban people even if they're "debating" in a way that is disruptive and driving off users? That too, is the "anti-cancel" position as far as I can see.

How do you square this? Be specific. Tell me the rule you want to enforce so that no one gets "cancelled" but we aren't swamped by garbage in online forums.

> But that presupposes the precise crux of the debate: whether most people targeted by 'cancel culture' really are, as you say, 'vile and awful'.

It absolutely does. Because if you can't cite me[1] someone who got "cancelled" who isn't "vile and awful", then doesn't it mean the whole "problem" doesn't exist?

Your position is that all my woke buddies are wrong and need to change. So show me the evidence.

[1] And let's be real: you can't, except for a tiny handful of notable cases. No one gets "canceled" here on HN (good grief, just look at the downvotes I'm quite sucessfully enduring!). No one gets "canceled" for being a republican. And most importantly: being argued with is not the same thing as being "canceled" no matter how hard you try to make that case.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/06/stop-firin...

> 'Clearly we should value debate. Clearly we "should" persuade people we disagree with. The question is whether we should be forced to.'

So you agree with the criticisms I made of cancel culture?

> 'If I'm an employer, should I be forced to hire people who I personally find unpersuadably vile?'

I don't think this is a helpful example, for two reasons. First, it is generally accepted that employers should have more latitude in the grounds on which they hire, than the grounds on which they fire. This reflects the fact that we are generally more concerned with actions of commission (e.g. killing someone) than omission (e.g. failing to give someone life-saving drugs). If we ask instead, 'Should you fire someone because they believe transgender women shouldn't be admitted into female sports', or 'Should you fire someone because they believe in the aggressive extradition of illegal immigrants', or 'Should you fire someone because they watch Fox news', it's much less clear-cut.

Secondly, and more to the point, what is at issue is rarely cancel culture among employers, but the way in which cancel culture pressures employers to fire people.

> 'If I run a forum (like HN, or Reddit), I can't ban people even if they're "debating" in a way that is disruptive and driving off users? That too, is the "anti-cancel" position as far as I can see. How do you square this? Be specific. Tell me the rule you want to enforce so that no one gets "cancelled" but we aren't swamped by garbage in online forums.'

I haven't thought about it, but my initial answer: I think the rules on large community websites like Reddit and HN should be to sanction abuse, hate speech (understood roughly along the lines of current British law), and various activities which undermine the aim of the website - e.g. persistent trolling, systematic lying, spamming adverts.

> 'It absolutely does. Because if you can't cite me[1] someone who got "cancelled" who isn't "vile and awful", then doesn't it mean the whole "problem" doesn't exist?'

You seem to think that the only evidence of cancel culture is the complete destruction of the lives of individuals. But those only the most extreme of cases. I just gave you a less extreme but far more representative case: the Guardian journalist that I read being harassed this morning (her name is Helen Pidd). Every time I go on Twitter I see a constant stream of tribalism, abuse and retributivism - these are not rare occurrences, they are omnipresent.

Take a more prominent case: J.K. Rowling's post on transgenderism. I disagree with 90% of what she wrote in that post. But I think her arguments should be engaged with, people should try and persuade her and those like her, that we should not abuse and deplatform her, and I don't think she is evil or malignant because of what she wrote.

With all respect, you seem to be retreating here. I don't think I disagree with any of your remedies, they sound fine. They also sound like pretty much the way our society and internet culture already work.

So I can't tell what you're arguing against. If "cancel culture" isn't the giant problem you originally jumped into argue against, and our existing protections are already in place... what are you arguing against?

I'm not saying that people aren't jerks on the internet. I'm saying that (1) it does happen at anything like the scale people like to think of (i.e. there is not Great and Terrible Woke Conspiracy), and (2) the excesses that are happening, at the scale they're happening at, are just not something we can "fix" via any remedy.

And the Rowling thing seems like a complete misinterpretation on your part. HUGE quantities of ink have been spilled at this point (including on this very site) explaining why the trans-exclusionary position is hurtful and counterproductive to modern feminism. Don't tell me she wasn't engaged with productive discourse. Rowling herself did like half a dozen interviews on the subject! You're acting like no one was willing to listen to her, when that's absolutely not the case.

You're saying that because someone was an asshole that means the rest of us are too? J. K. Rowling wasn't "canceled" in any way that matters. She was just wrong.

> 'With all respect, you seem to be retreating here.'

Nothing I said in my last post with inconsistent with the letter or spirit of my foregoing posts.

I didn't set out any 'remedies'. You asked me about about two relatively narrow issues. As I have repeated, I take 'cancel culture' to be, in the first instance, a cultural problem. The fundamental remedy is, therefore, cultural. Abolishing Twitter would help, though I don't see that happening.

If you don't know what I'm arguing against, return to my first post.

> 'And the Rowling thing seems like a complete misinterpretation on your part.'

You seem to be implying someone can only be negatively affected by cancel culture when: (i) their lives are destroyed; (ii) everyone who engages with them is participating in cancel culture. Why?

Obviously not everyone who engaged with Rowling disagreed, and not everyone who disagreed exhibited the pathologies that I attributed to cancel culture. But there was a very large -certainly the majority of voices on Twitter - contingent of people who didn't engage with Rowling's arguments, had no interest in persuading Rowling or those who sympathised with her, castigated her as evil and hateful, and called for a boycott of her books, and on authors writing for her publishing house to terminate their contracts.

'In any way that matters'. Rowling's entire profile has been shaped by the debate. This will define her life and career, and how she is remembered for the rest of history. Of course, she is a billionaire, and lives comfortably. But the point is that this is merely one (prominent) case representative of the very tendencies you deny exist.

The consequences are the degradation of the conversation in the public sphere, and of the willingness and ability of people to debate and think for themselves. Given that I share many of the broad goals of 'cancel culture' - i.e. curbing prejudicial and exclusionary discourses - I also worry that this kind of toxic approach will preclude the coalition-building and persuasion necessary to long-term hegemonic change. It also creates an avoidable blowback, i.e. most people feel condescended to, others take up the same style of politics on the right.

Read the Atlantic piece linked to above - there are many less prominent cases of individuals have been 'cancelled', often with little cause. I see this happening every time I log on to Twitter, in all directions.

Again, you just seem slippery here. I'm not denying that people are mean on the internet. I'm not denying that people get harmed by it. I'm denying that it's a huge problem, thus my attempts to pin you down on What Exactly Is Wrong, and How Do You Propose to Fix It. And you keep moving the goalposts!

Basically, this is what I keep hearing: "OK, these people weren't harmed, exactly. But countless others were who I haven't named. And why do you demand evidence of "harm" anyway? Aren't there other ways of being harmed?"

I mean... people are jerks. We can't fix that. Twitter surely can't fix that. If employers are routinely firing people[1] based on what jerks say on Twitter, then that's a problem. But it's something employers are going to have to address on a case-by-case basis.

[1] They aren't. Seriously, they aren't. It's happened in the past. It's not "happening". Far more people get fired for far worse reasons and we don't freak out at HN over it.

You claim I am 'slippery' and 'moving the goalposts'. You said in your last post that I was 'retreating'. Yet you have not even tried to show how anything I have said in my later posts is inconsistent with my earlier posts. Absent that, those claims are not helpful.

You say 'I'm not denying people are mean on the internet. I'm denying people get harmed by it'.

There are two simple problems here. The first is that we are not talking about whether people are 'mean', we're talking about the attitudes, beliefs and behaviour of a specific subculture: 'cancel culture'. I have set out what I take to be the pathologies of that subculture. Why are you ignoring those pathologies, and talking as if 'cancel culture' didn't exist, and if this was just people being generically mean?

The second is that you protest that cancel culture is harmless. I just set out why I take it to be harmful: it degrades the public sphere, inhibits thought and debate, undermines hegemonic change, and threatens a blowback. Why have you not engaged with any of those arguments?

Finally, you raise the issue of 'employers' again. I have already said I take this to be peripheral to cancel culture. The main harm of cancel culture, as I see it, is on the public sphere. A few extreme cases end in firing - and that's significant for those people - but it's a relatively small harm compared to the effect it has on the public sphere.

> we're talking about the attitudes, beliefs and behaviour of a specific subculture: 'cancel culture'. I have set out what I take to be the pathologies of that subculture. Why are you ignoring those pathologies, and talking as if 'cancel culture' didn't exist

Yeah. This is the disconnect. You're asserting without evidence that "cancel culture" exists as "a thing" worth discussing. I assert it doesn't, it's just a bunch of jerks, and ask for evidence about its impact.

And you don't want to engage on that. Which tells me that maybe this isn't really "a thing" worth discussing, just something that you're personally upset about.

> 'You're asserting without evidence that "cancel culture" exists as "a thing" worth discussing. I assert it doesn't, it's just a bunch of jerks, and ask for evidence about its impact.'

Your original response was that the listed pathologies 'were not that bad', but that they were only found in response to people who were genuinely 'vile and awful'. Now you're saying those pathologies are invented. Which is it?

You say I haven't provided evidence of its impact. In three of the four responses since my original post, I've given examples: Helen Pidd, J.K. Rowling, and The Atlantic piece linked to upthread. I could go on citing endless individual cases, but as I have tried to emphasise, the problem as I see it is a collective one: a culture degrading the public sphere.

You write in another of your replies: 'If you want to talk about individual instances of injustice, I'm there with you. If you want to paint a whole culture of internet progressives on the basis of a tiny handful of spiteful retributions, I think you aren't arguing in good faith.'

If individual cases can't prove anything, what evidence will you accept?

> 'Just something that you're personally upset about'.

I have to tell you, I am not the only person to notice the existence of a new 'cancel' culture, or to object to it. There was a prominent Harper's letter circulated on exactly this subject just a few days ago:

https://harpers.org/a-letter-on-justice-and-open-debate/

I think you're making a false dichotomy. You can avoid ostracising and deplatforming people without welcoming and broadcasting them.

Perhaps I can, but can twitter?

The definition of vile is getting ridiculous. Today its seems anyone is a "violent racist" if they don't agree 100% with BLM's mission statement. I'm sorry, you have to live in a world where there are people who have different opinions.

And Right On Cue, here's a great counter example: https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/10/media/tucker-carlson-writer-b...

Read that, and you tell me: was Blake Neff canceled? Sure seems like it. Mainstream journalists found "vile" material in his online history, showed it to his employer, he's canned (well, resigned it seems like, technically).

So are you going to defend Neff? Please do. Or if you won't, please tell me why your carefully curated worries about "cancel culture" somehow don't apply to this case.

Because I can tell you why: because "vile".

So now tell me why your personal, entirely subjective definition of "vile" is more important that those of other people with different priorities. Because that's the only difference here.

At the moment I can't see any of it's features when someone like David Shor is fired for publishing facts of a study looking at types of protest. https://twitter.com/lhfang/status/1271166899666079744?lang=e...

Not "someone like" David Shor. David Shor. He was fired. One guy. And that was wrong[1]. But one guy doesn't an epidemic make.

If you want to talk about individual instances of injustice, I'm there with you. If you want to paint a whole culture of internet progressives on the basis of a tiny handful of spiteful retributions, I think you aren't arguing in good faith.

[1] FWIW: it's been half reported and intimated that maybe he was really fired because the rest of the staff already hated him and this was an excuse. We don't know. But the public reason given for his termination was garbage.

This article from The Atlantic[1] does a much better job explaining the issue. It contains more than a handful of examples of people getting fired for really benign opinions, also this is just in the last few months.

[1]: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/07/perils-us-...

I’m not sure if you’re aware or not. But you just proved a point I made.

I read it as supporting your point.

Because you started your comment with a question asking why, people thought you were genuinely asking a question rather than trying to make a point.

Freedom of speech isn't freedom from consequences of that speech. What planet do you live on that you think everyone else should have to both listen to what you say, and then not "punish" you for it? If you tell your wife she looks fat, she's probably not having sex with you that evening. If you call someone a racial slur, they're probably both going to tell everyone they know about what you said, and refuse to interact with you unless forced to.

What you're talking about isn't freedom of speech, it's freedom FROM responsibility. I don't think you're going to find very many people that want to sign up for: HNThrowaway262 can do whatever he wants and you just have to take it. That's a dictatorship or a monarchy, you might want to live in that society but I don't.

Your words and actions have consequences and SHOULD.

"Freedom of speech isn't freedom from consequences of that speech"

That's not true, it doesn't even really make sense. Freedom of anything is freedom from consequences for it. If I say I believe in freedom to have an abortion, noone would reasonably be said to agree if they said they also believe in freedom to have an abortion, and then immediate execution by the state afterwards.

Freedom of speech in the constitution is freedom from reprisal by the government

Freedom of speech as used idiomatically in speech generally means a certain level of freedom of reprisals from employers and society.

Directed racial slurs is a straw man, almost noone believes in absolutist freedom of speech when it comes to directed harrassment, they normally believe in freedom to discuss topics in the abstract.

It's not a monarchy if someone has the freedom to speak, that doesn't make them a king just a citizen.

I've noticed a trend with the woke side of the debate to get into like high-school level semantics - redefining words or misinterpreting statements in a nakedly disingenuous way - does anyone understand why this seems to be a trend?

>Freedom of speech as used idiomatically in speech generally means a certain level of freedom of reprisals from employers and society.

"a certain level" implies the existence of an acceptable level of consequence, unless by that you mean "absolute." If so, why not simply state that?

>Directed racial slurs is a straw man, almost noone believes in absolutist freedom of speech when it comes to directed harrassment, they normally believe in freedom to discuss topics in the abstract.

You're just moving the goalposts around the definition of "speech" so that it conveniently doesn't include the contradictions to your premise. Racial slurs and directed harassment are obviously speech. If you believe there should be consequences for that, then you believe freedom of speech does not mean freedom from consequences.

It's not moving the goal posts, you seem to be creating a false dichotomy between: "support free speech" -> must support lack of reprisals for all free speech, including directed racial slurs "do not support free speech" -> must accept the current level and form of reprisals.

Where most people who say they support free speech are, is this statement: "support free speech without reprisals, excluding directed harrassment, with some level of acceptable reprisals in employment and socially, depending on the context, but at a much lower level than is currently the case, with less arbitrary application of mob justice and employer discrimination"

It's not catchy but nor is it inherently contradictory. It's what I imagine JK Rowling, Chomsky et al would say if you spoke to them about their letter.

I really think it would be useful if the anti-free-speech side of the debate stopped with this semantics and straw men about freedom from reprisals, monarchies, directed racism. I think that a person should be free to discuss eg. spaces for trans vs non-trans women and where to draw the line on sports etc, to what level the BLM is a useful movement, the relative weight of cultural vs economic vs discrimination in explaining different outcomes across ethicities and genders, positive discrimination, without being fired, cancelled or becoming unemployable. That's what most free speech people think, and all these semantic points, false definitions and straw men are kind of a waste of time

You seem to believe the phrase "freedom of speech doesn't mean freedom from consequences" implicitly justifies all possible consequences. It doesn't, it merely implies that speech doesn't exist in a vacuum, and that the consequences of speech often, themselves, are as much a manifestation of free expression as the original speech.

Your own counterclaim, however, that "freedom from anything means freedom from the consequences of that thing" does not even allow for the reasonable, non-arbitrary consequences you're supporting, here.

You, I and tw04 are actually in violent agreement, but it seems your politics doesn't allow you to concede the possibility that the "other side" can hold a reasonable opinion.

It's not clear that you and zimablue are in agreement unless you agree that the level consequences people are currently experiencing is excessive.

For a lot of us here, the phrase "free speech doesn't mean freedom from consequences" comes across (not unreasonably) as support for firing trump supporters or people who question system racism (etc.) which is both unjust and foolish for a number of reasons.

We also need to consider whether it is just to fire someone for something offensive (but not illegal) they did offline that was surreptitiously recorded and uploaded to the Internet to feed mob outrage.

> It's not clear that you and zimablue are in agreement unless you agree that the level consequences people are currently experiencing is excessive.

I actually would agree with that, but I disagree that any consequence is always excessive.

>For a lot of us here, the phrase "free speech doesn't mean freedom from consequences" comes across (not unreasonably) as support for firing trump supporters or people who question system racism (etc.) which is both unjust and foolish for a number of reasons.

I think it is unreasonable, or at least uncharitable, to assume the most extreme interpretation possible of a phrase simply because you disagree with the politics of the people using it.

That's exactly the sort of thing "a lot of us here" accuse progressives or "the left" of doing to them.

> I actually would agree with that, but I disagree that any consequence is always excessive.

Fair enough.

> I think it is unreasonable, or at least uncharitable, to assume the most extreme interpretation possible of a phrase simply because you disagree with the politics of the people using it.

I disagree that it was unreasonable or extreme. "Free speech doesn't mean freedom of consequences" is mutually exclusive of the statement "free speech does mean freedom from at least some consequences". You cannot logically support both statements.

It's also the slogan that is very commonly used to justify these cancellations. I think it's worth point out that the initial comment by wGeF7H8Z59y985y (not zimablue) was clearly framing things in the context of people losing their jobs over their political opinions.

The implication that "abstract" discussion is acceptable seems to condone dog whistling, especially given that protesting much of that speech could be considered "redefining words or misinterpreting statements in a nakedly disingenuous way", as that coded redefinition by the speaker is literally what dog whistles require, but seems disingenuous outside of that context.

That's true and the nature of language is such that there are constantly evolving dog whistles and methods of expression, but dog whistles aren't directed harrassment so I would basically allow them. Feel free not to vote for a dog whistling politician but I don't think one should not employ/fire/cancel someone for dog whistling that they believe some unfashionable or objectionable view.

> Feel free not to vote for a dog whistling politician but I don't think one should not employ/fire/cancel someone for dog whistling that they believe some unfashionable or objectionable view.

I mean, that's literally what not voting for someone is - choosing to not hire them. But that's semantics.

I'm not sure how you draw the lines on all this - if someone is spending all day tell their Jewish co-worker they need to stop the "international bankers", is that OK? Is speaking hatefully in the abstract about a group of people acceptable?

"Jew bankers" is a nasty slur. But is it a slur because It's unfair to Jews to call bankers Jews, or to call Jews bankers, or unfair to bankers to call bankers Jews, or to call Jews bankers?

If you attack a person or a race by accusing them of misbehaviors, that doesn't mean it's wrong to oppese misbehaviors!

But that's not the dog-whistle - that's too overt. There's apparently a line here when things switch, when things switch from "direct harassment" to simply "objectionable". I'm curious as to where that is.

I think that elected representatives are a special category in this, whilst technically you employ them they’re operating democracy not capitalism, so it’s different in many ways- it’s more reasonable to judge their character, the power imbalance is in their favor, positive discrimination for elected representatives seems more reasonable etc etc.

The lines will always be a little blurred, but international bankers isn’t a synonym for Jews, it might be a dog whistle but it would only be a problem for me if they know the colleague is Jewish and do this day in day out after being asked to stop.

I think so much of this discussion is wasted, and we’d be more productive just to pick a few examples and argue on them about whether we shift the line.

Eg. For me Damore shouldn’t have been fired and that’s when I realized that the woke thing wasn’t a right wing straw man, it really was running big Corp America

I think the issue arises due to the nature of the internet being such an amplification tool. In-person social networks are on the order of 100s or 1000s.

What I'm really afraid of is reaching an audience of hundreds of millions, and having them potentially inadvertently take my words out of context. Doxing is a hard problem to solve, but I'd really prefer a SWAT team not show up at my door. Statistically, you're much more likely to reach those few bad apples with an internet-sized megaphone.

I think disagreements are fantastic to work through and how we better ourselves, but some people react pretty horribly to them.

And who shall be the judge of what is right and what is wrong? An internet mob? If an unknown woman issues a public twitter statement that she's been abused, is it OK to get the alleged offender cancelled before a court trial? What if they are innocent? How do you un-cancel somebody?

You don't. That's why the cancel culture is ridiculous and needs to end.

Would you like to judge how limited my speech should be?

For example, if someone feels me up, should I be allowed to post on Facebook detailing the encounter? Am I allowed to name them? Can I tag their employers?

If I read about someone claiming that they've been felt up, can I forward it to my friends? Can I notify my employer if they're working at the same company as me?

Essentially, can you determine a line where my freedom to speak ends?

Yeah it ends when you make a statement about someone that accuses them of a crime or otherwise libels them, in the UK at least. If someone has committed a crime, we have courts. We've been doing this for centuries.

> Yeah it ends when you make a statement about someone that accuses them of a crime

Why should I avoid talking about something because it pertains to a criminal proceeding? If I get sexually assaulted, should I avoid reaching out to anyone for support? If a person cheated me out of money during a business transaction, should I avoid calling them out on it? If someone punches me, and the police decide not to press charges, do I avoid warning anyone?

Falsely calling people you don't like evil to cause them harm or for you own economic gain should result in jail time and compensation for the victim.

As of now, we're so afraid of stopping people from coming forward that we've allowed those with evil intentions to weaponize our empathy.

> Falsely calling people you don't like evil to cause them harm or for you own economic gain should result in jail time and compensation for the victim.

False speech isn't protected. Also, the parent comment made no claim that the statements made were true or false, just that there were accusation. I don't think that "people shouldn't knowingly lie" is a particularly hard stance on free speech.

> False speech isn't protected.

It is to the extent that it isn't prosecuted as a matter of policy.

> Also, the parent comment made no claim that the statements made were true or false, just that there were accusation

And I'm saying "No, I think we ought to appropriately punish people who do make false claims" in response to the original question Would you like to judge how limited my speech should be?

If you want to have a separate conversation on whether false speech is prosecuted in the United States, we can do that. But this isn't really relevant to the discussion at hand, which is how is "cancel culture" at odds with "free speech."

> And I'm saying "No, I think we ought to appropriately punish people who do make false claims" in response to the original question "Would you like to judge how limited my speech should be?"

Okay, but then you aren't disagreeing with me; just posting a tangential point. In the example posted:

> If an unknown woman issues a public twitter statement that she's been abused, is it OK to get the alleged offender cancelled before a court trial?

There's no indication that the claims are false, and if they are false, that the people making the claims aren't punished. All it asks is "is it okay to share information about an accusation, even if you aren't certain it's true?"

> Okay, but then you aren't disagreeing with me

I wasn't trying to disagree with you. I just think the issue is oversimplified into forum sized bites and needs to be approached holistically.

> If you want to have a separate conversation on whether false speech is prosecuted in the United States, we can do that. But this isn't really relevant to the discussion at hand, which is how is "cancel culture" at odds with "free speech."

False speech being 'protected' in the sense that it doesn't result in any harm to person committing the act is, in my opinion, extremely relevant. Free speech isn't free if those who would cause you harm are free to do so at the slightest provocation, and without fear of punishment.

> All it asks is "is it okay to share information about an accusation, even if you aren't certain it's true?"

My answer is "Yes, if you're willing to accept an appropriate punishment for libel/slander/defamation in the event you were wrong." One added thought though, what if the person accused can no longer afford a decent lawyer because they got canceled? That could result in catastrophic harm to an innocent person, just like the [0]4% of death row inmates that are supposedly innocent.

[0] https://www.pnas.org/content/111/20/7230

> Free speech isn't free if those who would cause you harm are free to do so at the slightest provocation, and without fear of punishment.

It seems like what you're going for is that freedom of speech requires responsibility for consequences of speech, which I'm all for. I'm more worried about understanding how far those consequences stretch; if you share an article about race statistics that prompts a riot, are you responsible?

> My answer is "Yes, if you're willing to accept an appropriate punishment for libel/slander/defamation in the event you were wrong."

Do you believe that if someone unknowingly published something that turns out to be false, they should be held legally liable for it? For example, if I share a news article that turns out to be false, I should bear liability?

> One added thought though, what if the person accused can no longer afford a decent lawyer because they got canceled? That could result in catastrophic harm to an innocent person, just like the [0]4% of death row inmates that are supposedly innocent.

That would be a causality of free speech. At some point, some group of people are going to be hurt by speech or lack thereof, and it's more a matter of deciding what tradeoffs we'll make.

> if you share an article about race statistics that prompts a riot, are you responsible?

Entirely depends on if the statistics and any stated conclusions are true, and to what extent the article actually prompted the riot vs other factors.

> Do you believe that if someone unknowingly published something that turns out to be false, they should be held legally liable for it? For example, if I share a news article that turns out to be false, I should bear liability?

If you unknowingly repeat that someone is a pedophile just because it seems popular, it seems reasonable that you share some portion of the blame for whatever harm befalls that person.

In the news article example it is the publication and/or the author that is responsible. Of course this gets into a grey area regarding the content of the article and whether it's possible to know the content is false or defamatory.

> At some point, some group of people are going to be hurt by speech or lack thereof, and it's more a matter of deciding what tradeoffs we'll make.

In my (based on the downvotes I'm receiving) unpopular opinion, I don't think we should give up any speech whatsoever under any circumstances. If people say evil things that cause harm (go kill this person, this person is a nazi, let's get this guy fired, etc), go after them for the harm.

> If people say evil things that cause harm, go after them for the harm.

You'll need to define what an "evil thing" is. For example, in the race statistic example, you make it clear that depending on exactly what was said, you may or may not be responsible for the harm.

You'll also need to define "cause." In cancel culture, no one "forces" companies to fire people, they just put companies under economic pressure, much like boycotting.

I think the key issue is what you mentioned earlier:

> whether it's possible to know the content is false

Where there's some threshold of belief whether something is true or not; for example, it might be fair game to share a New York Times article, knowing that they're generally true. But someone on Twitter?

Also thanks for talking in good faith, it's refreshing to talk to someone who genuinely engages in discussion as opposed to trying to win.

> You'll need to define what an "evil thing" is.

If someone says something false with the intent of harming someone (getting them fired, ostracized in their community, harming their personal relationships, etc) I would say that's a reasonable definition of evil.

A good example is when some people try to call Joe Rogan, a liberal comedian who liked Bernie for president, a Nazi or alt-right. It's clearly untrue and it's intended to de-platform him because they don't like the politics or message of some of his guests.

> You'll also need to define "cause."

I look at this from a rather extreme perspective. If I put a gun to someone's head and tell them to do something, it's coerced. I didn't 'make them' do the thing. They did it willingly to avoid harm.

The same is true when a horde of people call someone's boss and say 'X is a Nazi so either fire him or we'll organize a boycott and you'll go out of business'

> Where there's some threshold of belief whether something is true or not

This is the hardest part to sort out. Hitting like or retweet on something isn't the same as publishing an article yourself. That said, intentionally signal boosting 'X is a nazi' or similar does cause harm. I think this requires a case-by-case review.

> Also thanks for talking in good faith, it's refreshing to talk to someone who genuinely engages in discussion as opposed to trying to win.

Likewise! Although it does seem that public opinion doesn't like my point of view much, I'm glad there's still folks willing try working through a topic together rather than jumping into a jousting match.

So do you have an example of someone being accused by one anonymous twitter user of sexual assault and subsequently had their career and life ruined?

How about a truck driver that was accused of racism by a Twitter rando and was quickly fired from his job?

https://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/local/sdge-worker-fired-ove...

The consequence of speech should be speech.

So no advocating for policies, laws or actions anymore?

There's a difference between advocating for political change, and ruining someone's life.

There are connections between the two though, annoyingly often. Advocating for a policy change that will ruin some people's lives. Advocating for a status quo that will ruin some people's lives. Advocating for some group of people to be fired. It doesn't make sense to see speech just as a consequence-less thing, in both directions.

You have to draw the line somewhere, right? Otherwise you get into slippery slope territory where eg. you can argue anyone who's not protesting for BLM are implicitly supporting the cops, and therefore are ruining black people's lives.

Sure. Not everything warrants a reaction, impact of speech highly depends on the speaker and context and reactions can be not proportionate. But I don't think a blanket "speech shouldn't have consequences" really works, because it will often have them, and often is intended to have them.

Ideally policies should be based on facts and reason, not just speech.

But speech and opinion-forming plays naturally a large role in it, especially in a democratic system. Lots of speech does have consequences (and lots of it is intended to have consequences that aren't just speech without further consequences). Speech shouldn't have consequences just doesn't work as an absolute position IMHO, and if it isn't then it's harder to explain that counter-speech isn't allowed to have consequences. (I'm explicitly not saying that every consequence is acceptable or justified)

Blatant opinion shaping is corruption of democratic system. Democracy should be driven by informed decision, not by stupid propaganda.

> What planet do you live on that you think everyone else should have to both listen to what you say, and then not "punish" you for it?

No one is forcing you to listen to anything. I'm sure you've never been forced to read r/TheDonald, or watch Alex Jones talk. If any friends on social media links you to a paper on psychological differences between the sexes being rooted in biology, you are free to ignore the link or block them all-together. If a coworker or employee starts talking about immigration restriction in a way that sounds vaguely xenophobic, you're free to ask them to keep that kind of political talk out of the workplace.

This is about the freedom that the rest of us have to choose to listen to others' speech, and to be free to engage with it and come to our own conclusion about it.

> If you tell your wife she looks fat, she's probably not having sex with you that evening. If you call someone a racial slur, they're probably both going to tell everyone they know about what you said, and refuse to interact with you unless forced to.

Those are not relevant examples.

>Freedom of speech isn't freedom from consequences of that speech.

It is though, it's just that we as a society define which consequences you are free from as the speaker (ex. some legal consequences). The internet, and social media in particular, has profoundly changed how we think about the topic. In my opinion we'd be better off as a whole if we reevaluated our perspectives when presented with new information rather than avoiding discourse entirely in favour of dogma.

>and then not "punish" you for it? If you tell your wife she looks fat, she's probably not having sex with you that evening

This isn't a punitive action, it's a personal choice of your wife. AFAIK you are not entitled to sex with your wife whenever you so choose. A scenario in which a contract is terminated based on something said on social media (when there's no clause in the contract covering that particular thing) is fundamentally different, for example.

> Freedom of speech isn't freedom from consequences of that speech.

Yes, it does, actually. That is, in fact, the definition of freedom of speech.

How about freedom of thought? Am I still allowed to have that?

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