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Comment by M2Ys4U | Hacker News Reader

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

We really, really aren't.

>If speech has consequences that are administered outside the law, then it's not really free.

Just take a moment and thing about what you just wrote. It's absolutely nonsense.

I can't go in to a job interview and call the panel a bunch of cunts and then expect to be hired. That's a consequence of speech "administered outside the law".

Does this mean there's no free speech? No, of course it doesn't.

I find it interminably frustrating that people (moreso on the right, and moreso in America, but neither exclusively) hold free speech above pretty much everything else. People have more than ONE right.

Free association is also a right that needs to be protected. And that means people should be free to associate with (or to NOT associate with) people that have said things they disagree with.

View on HN

Alright you guys when the conversation goes to "It's absolutely nonsense" followed by "which rock have you been under", you're forfeiting the right to have this argument on Hacker News. Please read the site guidelines until you see that this is exactly what they ask you not to do here, regardless of how wrong the other person is, how right you are, or how right you feel you are.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Maybe you don't owe the person you're arguing with better, but you owe this community much better if you're posting to it. The idea here is to have a place on the internet that doesn't destroy itself with flames and screams... or at least to stave that fate off a while longer. That's getting harder lately, and we need you to help haul in the right direction and not push it off a cliff.

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...

Freedom of speech has to do with freedom from government control over speech. However, what people who only talk about enshrined rights forget about is the American spirit. It is not in the spirit of America to destroy a life because of the least charitable interpretation of what they said. Much as the rules of Hackernews include engaging with the most charitable interpretation of someones post, so is common etiquette. We don't want to focus so much on the law that we forget who we are and how we should act. When you walk into an interview and call everyone "cunts" there isn't a charitable way to take that. When someone makes an OK symbol, there definitely is. Its true that you don't have to associate with anyone you don't want to, and I personally thing that should actually be a stronger right than it is currently interpreted as, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't try to work with people you don't like. If they say they want to kill you, re-evaluate, but if they don't like your political candidate, maybe take a step back and realize we're all Americans and all working together in the big picture.

I guess you could give pause and think that the spirit of America is more accurately reflected in so called “cancel culture” than the romantic idyll of it you suggest. From an outside perspective the idea that it’s not in the spirit of America to destroy a life based on uncharitable interpretation doesn’t really square with things like the Iraq war, the death penalty and the very visible actions of the police over the past few weeks.

> We really, really aren't.

Which rock have you been under?

In the last year I've seen 3 collegues fired and 2 have to issue public apologies on twitter.

For publically supporting trump.

Which then got turned into "I dont feel safe working with this person."

This is all pushed by the stasi level initiatives that comes out of our D&I team. Its hell to work under but I dont feel like chucking my career over it.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...

Do you think that political engagement is a game with no consequences, or do you think that there is a point where it would be reasonable to feel unsafe around someone with particular political views?

If your "political engagement" is slandering someone to their employer with the express goal of having them terminated, then I think that should come with consequences. But I wouldn't materially punish someone for simply having these kinds of abhorrent beliefs. In other words, if you believe it's okay to harass people for wrongthink you shouldn't be punished, but if you actually do harass people for wrongthink, you should be punished.

Clearly I need to spell this out more clearly. Do you believe that support of Trump should be without consequences? I don't have the details of the three cases discussed above, but the lack of detail is exactly the problem: It paints politics as a game that we can supposedly play with no real-world results. I object to that framing (as well as the framing that any degree of "support" for a candidate is equally damning).

> Do you believe that support of Trump should be without consequences?

Yes.

You do realise your position violates multiple UN human rights?

Take a read through the lot of them. Please.

https://www.un.org/en/universal-declaration-human-rights/

People have died to maintain these rights. Please stop trying to tear them down. You're not woke. You're asleep.

Which human rights does my position violate? Please, enlighten me.

YOU do realize that human rights don't include a blanket prohibition on people treating you differently due to your political opinions?

Also, how do you reconcile these "universal" human rights in a state that violates them?

They apply to everyone, regardless of political stance.

Articles 12, 20, 21, 23, 29.

You do realise that while not a blanket prohibition on treating you differently, employment, wellbeing and political leanings are expressly covered for obvious reasons.

But I never suggested that Trump supporters should have their employment or wellbeing threatened for their support of Trump... I am merely making the point that support for Trump could reasonably be part of making one's colleagues feel unsafe. Additionally, the fact that political opinion is protected does not mean that a person's politics can be ignored.

There are absolutely people who I would feel unsafe around because of their political views!

But politics is the process whereby we negotiate our competing beliefs and interests in a society. I can make an effort to silence the folks who make me feel unsafe, but that doesn't make those people go away. Even if they no longer work at my company, they still have a vote. Acting to assuage your immediate concerns without consideration for the long impact on the political discourse is foolish.

Let's also remember that "unsafe" and "uncomfortable" are not the same thing. Unless that person is actually posing a threat to me through harassment or violence, I would much rather engage with them in a civil manner.

> Acting to assuage your immediate concerns without consideration for the long impact on the political discourse is foolish.

On the other hand, deplatforming people and removing their resources does work in some cases. Others may disagree and consider it wise to assuage their immediate concerns. Your belief in its foolishness is valid, but cannot on its own be the guideline for wider social norms.

> Let's also remember that "unsafe" and "uncomfortable" are not the same thing.

Of course.

> I would much rather engage with them in a civil manner.

Civility fetishism is an entirely different conversation. Suffice it to say that I think it's distinctly less valuable than commonly portrayed.

> On the other hand, deplatforming people and removing their resources does work in some cases.

In what sense do you mean they "work"?

> Civility fetishism is an entirely different conversation. Suffice it to say that I think it's distinctly less valuable than commonly portrayed.

One could say the same about the fetishism of "safety".

> In what sense do you mean they "work"?

They reduce the ability of extremists to radicalize young people, for example. On a platform level, banning certain actors makes my life better because less fake news will show up in my feed.

ETA: It also denies people some amount of income in many cases, now that platforms are often monetized.

> One could say the same about the fetishism of "safety".

Yes, you could. But I believe that acting to protect one's safety is more justifiable than acting to protect "civility". Both are subjective, but the former is more personal.

> They reduce the ability of extremists to radicalize young people, for example.

Hm... I'm not going to say the problem of radicalization isn't real, it most certainly is, but I think we need to have a clear definition of what qualifies as radicalization.

> On a platform level, banning certain actors makes my life better because less fake news will show up in my feed.

That's a problem of filtering tools and suggestion algorithms.

> ETA: It also denies people some amount of income in many cases, now that platforms are often monetized.

I don't see that as a terminal goal.

> Yes, you could. But I believe that acting to protect one's safety is more justifiable than acting to protect "civility". Both are subjective, but the former is more personal.

Acting against legitimate threats to one's safety does absolutely override concerns of civility. But there are standards for determining whether an alleged threat is credible. Claiming that one's safety is threatened by a coworker merely because they voted for Trump (the initial example that waheoo provided) is absolutely ludicrous.

> Hm... I'm not going to say the problem of radicalization isn't real, it most certainly is, but I think we need to have a clear definition of what qualifies as radicalization.

Goodluck with that, the only side radicalizing anyone right now is the left.

I would not feel unsafe around someone who voted for Trump, though I might question their morals.

I would not feel unsafe around someone who voted for Hillary, though I might question their judgment.

I would feel unsafe around someone whose political views were that you should be fired if you voted for Trump. (I would also feel unsafe around someone whose political views were that you should be fired if you voted for Hillary. However, such people are few, and they currently have no traction with the HR department.)

Do you grant that some people may feel differently about the politics of Trump, or should we shape our cultural norms (after all, that's what we are talking about when we mention "cancel culture") around what YOU think is reasonable or unreasonable politics?

You seem to be implying that we can't shape our cultural norms about what I think is reasonable. That's fair. But we also can't shape them around what people think is reasonable who feel threatened by Trump.

I get that some people feel differently about Trump's politics. (Hey, I feel mighty concerned about his politics.) That's why the standard of what's "reasonable behavior" can't be shaped by how everybody feels. Otherwise, it just turns into a contest to see who can proclaim that they feel what they feel more strongly than the other side.

At some point, some element of determining what is rationally justified by the circumstances has to come into play. But that's hard, because everyone has radically different ideas of what "the circumstances" actually are.

Failing that, the only thing left is existing norms of behavior. And getting someone fired for their politics is well outside of that.

I feel far more unsafe around the woke left than I do around supporters of a bumbling idiot.

Do I think it is reasonable to feel unsafe around someone just for supporting the candidate that 63 million people supported in the last election? No, no I don't.

Nope, but I believe there are a lot of horrid people who supported Trump. Providing these three supposed anecdotes serves only to muddy the conversation and peddle the "cancel culture" myth. Do people get fired for stupid reasons? Of course. Some of them even get fired because of stupid reasons that Twitter dug up. But that's a problem with labor rights, not a cultural shift.

What horrid people? Why do you believe this? They got manipulated by facebook ads.

Cancel culture is a myth? Are you following the news at all?

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8506215/

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

>We really, really aren't.

Yes, we are. Example: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22299156

Something ironic about your post being downvoted or cancelled depending on your point of view.

I think to an extent we seem to be heading towards a thought police society as evident by people losing their jobs over things they do or say that go viral online (if you need references I'll be happy to pull some up, but here in the USA at least its happened a number of times), this is often called cancel culture. We see it on HN all the time, sometimes I get downvoted to oblivion without a single response as to why. I come to HN for discourse and yet its too easy to shun out people without any consequence. I don't say things because I think every little thing I say is fact, I say it to share my view which now and then is unpopular so it holds me back from posting on HN a good amount of the time, I can assume there's other users with the same issue.

Society has always, always had social norms which entailed consequences if countered. And often times in the past, the norms were strict and dissent was punished by jail, torture, or death.

Today, we've much improved. If you express an opinion that is contrary to the norms, you get made fun or or ostracized by the community, you don't get killed. Which is how it should be, say what you want, but people are completely within their rights to shut you out, ignore you, or boo so loudly as to drown you out.

Freedom of speech protects you from people who attempt to silence you by jailing, torturing, or killing you. It doesn't mean people are forced to put up with your stupid and unpopular opinions.

Complaining about 'cancel culture' screams of entitlement to me. If you want to be heard, say something worth listening to.

> Society has always, always had social norms which entailed consequences if countered. And often times in the past, the norms were strict and dissent was punished by jail, torture, or death.

> Today, we've much improved. If you express an opinion that is contrary to the norms, you get made fun or or ostracized by the community, you don't get killed.

"Things are better now than they were at some point in the past" does not mean that we should stop trying to improve, since things have already improved by a nonzero amount. If I said "Deaths due to infectious disease now are much lower than they were 100 years ago and therefore we shouldn't worry about infectious disease now", my faulty logic would immediately be spotted and called out.

The general environment for free speech is much better today than it was in years past. There are, however, specific worrying trends now that did not exist in the past, and I think people are right to point them out. I'm not a huge fan of the term "cancel culture", because it implies a lot more intentional group behavior than I think happens, but the term does point to a real phenomenon where certain controversial speech gets amplified to absurd degrees, and a very small fraction of the people who see it and disagree with it try to cause disproportionate harm to the speaker (e.g. lying to their employer to try to get them fired, calling in false reports to try to get a highly armed SWAT team sent to their place of residence, sending death threats, etc.).

Complaints about "cancel culture" are not so much about people complaining about not being heard as people complaining about having something they said taken out of context and amplified to millions of people, and the consequences of the consequent rage of millions and actions of the most extreme dozens of people out of those millions.

Losing your job and getting death threats is an improvement over being jailed, tortured, or killed, but it's still not ideal, and we're still allowed to want better.

> Freedom of speech protects you from people who attempt to silence you by jailing, torturing, or killing you. It doesn't mean people are forced to put up with your stupid and unpopular opinions.

You (like many) misunderstand the debate. "Free speech" proponents aren't advocating for a prohibition of criticism--to the contrary, criticism is free speech. Rather, free speech proponents are arguing against intimidation (e.g., harassment, doxxing, petitioning one's employer to fire them for wrongthink or false allegations, etc).

Anyway, you concede that things have improved in the past, but you criticize people for opposing regression to a more limited-speech state. This seems remarkably overtly inconsistent.

EDIT: This is cancel culture: https://twitter.com/wokal_distance/status/128148065056698777...

If I inform a corporation that I will not do business with them while a person is in their employment, am I oppressing that person or am I using my freedom of speech?

If I say "it would be unfortunate if something happened to your job", am I issuing a veiled threat or am I using my freedom of speech? It's possible that I'm not making a threat, but we know it's unlikely. Technically it amounts to intent (do you intend to ruin someone's livelihood or are you just making a bizarre statement for indecipherable reasons?).

I agree with everything you said. Can you comment on my question though?

I did. I said it technically depends on intent; however, in practice it's implausible that you weren't issuing a threat, and threats don't constitute free speech.

Ok I'm confused so can you please help me? My example was absolutely a "threat" in the sense that yes, I in that example would be serious about voicing my opinion and my intention to not voluntarily do business with that imaginary corporation while they employed that person. I would be "threatening" to do something which is entirely my freedom to do; to vote with my wallet.

But if I understand you correctly, this would be going outside my freedom of speech. Which implies that I do not have the choice to not do business with them. As in, I am obligated to purchase goods and services from them.

I am clearly misunderstanding this because that can't be right. Where did I go off track?

Of course you have the choice of whether or not to do business with them. Nevertheless, threats are not free speech.

I'm still confused. I am completely free to choose whether or not to do business with them, but I am not allowed to tell them about my choice? Or am I not allowed to speak about it at all, regardless of who listens?

Issuing threats is not free speech. You're still free to choose with whom you do business. Terribly sorry, but I don't know how to make it simpler than that. Good luck in your pursuits.

Ah yes, and of course whether or not something is a threat depends on intent. And who could be a better judge of intent than ... throwaway894345. Who I'm sure has an incredibly nuanced way of determining intent that doesn't boil down to "SJWs have bad intent".

You're extorting a company, let's even call it quid pro quo.

This would be hard to legally call extortion, since consumers are free to do business with who they please, and there is a strong history of boycott activity. Also if it were illegal, then many negotiating tactics become extortion. Is threatening to leave a company unless you get a raise now illegal extortion? Is demanding a lower cable bill or else you'll go to a competitor now illegal extortion?

I would consider these more ultimatums than extortion. Also extortion always includes quid pro quo, but not all quid pro quo is illegal. Context matters.

So a boycott?

Sure, is my choice to boycott a company also an act of oppression?

It sounds like you will protect free speech by suppressing certain forms of free speech?

I would not necessarily be against anti-harassment/doxxing laws, and stronger employee protections around firings. However, also stronger hate speech laws around protected classes. It's a double edged sword.

Threats and intimidation don't constitute free speech, even when veiled. Note that I don't think anyone is advocating for more/harsher laws to protect free speech (although these might be welcomed by some), only appealing for a cultural shift away from cancellation and toward free-speech values.

I believe free speech does not cover "true threats". I don't think a consumer complaint threatening to not do business is going to be considered a "true threat" against a company.

Free speech doesn't cover any kind of threats. We tolerate "veiled threats" to the extent that we can't confirm that they are threats, and they are difficult to confirm by design and definition. They exploit our presumption of innocence.

Threats of all kinds are made every day, and often in completely legal contexts. Threats of violence are often less tolerated, but even in some contexts protected under freedom of speech.

Take care not to conflate free speech principles with legal protections for free speech.

It sounds like you want people to censor themselves in a way you find appropriate, based on what you believe freedom of speech means.

I understand your point but can't get on board with it.

The main issue I have is that people make organized attempts to cause harm to others as part of the 'canceling' rather than a personal choice. Not wanting to work with me is one thing, trying to convince the whole world not to work with me might cause me to become homeless.

The second issue is that the "reasons" for canceling people are so often petty or outright not true. For example, the people that call Joe Rogan a Nazi or alt-right. Either they know nothing about National Socialism and the alt-right or they know nothing about the person they want to cancel.

And third, canceling people is outright stupid. You don't want people with evil ideas and intentions hiding in the dark and invisible to you. You want their bad ideas as visible as possible so you can avoid them or shine a light on them. Sending everyone with a bad idea to another website only serves to embolden them and gives them a way to say 'see, we really are persecuted!'

And this is completely skipping over the de-banking people. That goes into a whole new level that I think people don't fully appreciate.

On your third point, I want to reiterate something I've said before: Nazi's aren't stupid. They take advantage of people who want unrestricuted free speech without consequences and use it as a recruiting tool to radicalize more nazis. (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23722215)

Kicking them off of a site raises the threshold for someone to be exposed to radicalizing factors. We have evidence that this is actually, really, effective at reducing rates of radicalization.

I don't really see how the example you've given of being downvoted can be equated to cancel culture.

You had and clearly still have the ability to express your views on this website so in what sense are you "cancelled"?

If people don't like what you say they're free to downvote it. It can be helpful if someone gives you some feedback on why they downvoted you, but its certainly not an obligation

I agree with this. I detest cancel culture, but downvoting isn't cancel culture. Cancel culture is about fostering a climate of fear that chills speech (specifically fear of harassment a la a concerted effort to petition one's employer to have one terminated). Downvoting is an expression of disagreement at worst, and it's perfectly consistent with free expression ideals.

EDIT: This is cancel culture: https://twitter.com/wokal_distance/status/128148065056698777...

Being downvoted is not being cancelled. If people don't agree with what you're saying, they're welcome to exercise their own right to speak and tell you so.

It's a little different on HN since a comment that gets enough downvotes is made invisible to other people.

No, its visibility gets reduced. It's not invisible. You can see that it's there, it's slightly harder to read.

Flagging a comment can make it invisible, and even then, only if you haven't set your account to show dead comments. Flagging and down voting are different, and flagging a comment because you disagree with but is otherwise not breaking any rules it is considered inappropriate here, while down voting is not.

There's often a confusion between this. Disrespecting and disagreeing is not canceling.

downvote = disagree

flag = attempt to cancel

Which there are good reasons to flag: trolling, breaking rules, doxing, etc. Does flagging also get abused? Yes! The same is with "cancel culture." Do we boo people off stage that say stupid stuff? Yes. Do people try to prevent trolls from speaking at a school? Also yes, who needs someone intentionally antagonizing others? Do people abuse it? Yes. Do we also feature the abuse more than the good? Yes. In fact, your brain is also hard wired to remember those better too. But it is also important to remember that flagging is a form of speech too. You have the right to disagree. You have the right to say "this is inappropriate." But that doesn't mean you are right or that the person you are disagreeing with or flagging doesn't also have the right to say those things. I.E. you have the right to say racist and xenophobic things on Hacker News. Dang has the right to remove your comment too, because that is what we've agreed to here. If you disagree, well there are other communities with different rules. So you can work to get them changed here or go to a different community. (Please don't try to get racism allowed here)

> But it is also important to remember that flagging is a form of speech too.

Is a bullet a form of speech as well? Because flagging will essentially kill your account if done often enough, that's the same on every platform, that's why there's coordinated flagging. First you will get limited ("can only post once an hour"), then you'll get timed out ("can't post for a week"), then you get (shadow) banned: your posts are flagged by default, but you can't tell as long as you're logged in. All of this is pretty straight unless you have a hand protecting you in the form of moderators rejecting flags, but you don't want to rely on that, because political opinions of both you and the moderators might change - a modern state based on law is much more reliable than staying on the good side of the local war lord.

"But others can theoretically still read it if they set showdead=true, so you're not rally deplatformed" isn't a valid argument against it. You can theoretically generate your own electricity and get your water delivered by truck etc if the local utility companies decide that they don't want to do business with you because of arbitrary reasons. But we've pretty much all decided to ignore those "well, technically you can [but practically you can't]" and just force the utility companies to not discriminate.

But it's not you being canceled, it's the comment. The equivalent on HN would require a bunch of people getting mad at a comment you made a year ago, and then downvoting all your future comments so they get buried regardless of their content. While there's probably people who do that, it's not applicable to your average grey comment.

As another commentor said, once you have enough downvotes your comment disappears therefore my statement stands that it is technically cancelled. I think after 2 negative downvotes it should really be required to respond to a comment to downvote any further if they are in the negative.

Cancel culture is not about removing individual messages on a web forum, though. Someone who has lost their living, their home or their friends can start taking about being “cancelled”. Having ONE of your messages made harder to read is not “being cancelled”.

I downvote posts that are capriciously off-topic or intellectually lazy. People who post those kind of things regularly don't belong on HN in my opinion. Your post seems like an interesting view, especially given the argument that others share it.

(Just upvoted you. Thanks!)

We have decided that there are limits to freedom of association, though, for example when it comes to discrimination. Forcing people to interact with others whose opinions they disagree with seems plausibly less imposing than forcing someone to interact with others whose religion they disagree with. I'm not sure this as clear-cut as you make it sound.

And I think it's quite the strawman to suggest that anyone believes that someone should be able to direct profanity at an interviewer and get hired, and I also don't think it's productive to equate "profanity" with "views that someone disagrees with."

>We have decided that there are limits to freedom of association, though, for example when it comes to discrimination.

Yes, we have. And that's a good thing. But why should the same not apply to speech?

I think it's unhealthy to view rights in an absolutist manner, be that freedom of expression, freedom of association or the right to privacy.

All rights interact and are often in opposition to one another, they need to be balanced.

>And I think it's quite the strawman to suggest that anyone believes that someone should be able to direct profanity at an interviewer and get hired, and I also don't think it's productive to equate "profanity" with "views that someone disagrees with."

Perhaps. It was an attempt as reductio ad absurdum but I may have missed the mark.

After all the comment I was replying to asserted that "If speech has consequences that are administered outside the law, then it's not really free."

As you say, the rights are often in opposition, and I would say that your proposed limit on speech in favor of association would actually require undoing limits on association that are arguably more fundamental. If a person can be fired for holding objectionable opinions, how far are we away from firing them because they talk about unionizing or because of their religion? Or will those things be on a list of "Things You're Allowed to Have an Opinion About"?

And I agree that the quoted sentence is too absolute, but I don't think the spirit is wrong, in the sense that behavior can be circumscribed by society in a way that that completely prevents it without it having been made illegal, and it's not convincing (to me, anyway) to suggest that the behavior isn't prohibited because it is, in fact, legal.

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

> We really, really aren't.

Perhaps it would be better to say that there is a lot of powerful people who are working very hard to create such a culture, but they haven't yet fully achieved their mission. There's no clear definition for when something becomes "a culture of cancellation", but a lot of people are reporting that they are afraid to run afoul of the progressive party line for fear of repercussions. There are of course plenty of people who don't have this fear because they are better protected from progressive reach (either because their industry isn't overwhelmingly progressive or because they have enough power to be okay if the mob comes for them).

> I can't go in to a job interview and call the panel a bunch of cunts and then expect to be hired. That's a consequence of speech "administered outside the law". Does this mean there's no free speech? No, of course it doesn't.

Of course no one is talking about "calling your interviewer a cunt and not getting hired" when they talk about "cancel culture". Name one prominent instance wherein this happened and it was widely condemned as "cancel culture". This seems highly disingenuous.

When people talk about "cancel culture", they're talking about things like:

* a journalist is forced to repent for interview a black person who is happy about the BLM movement but wishes there was more concern about the daily non-police-perpetrated violence in his community

* a data scientist loses his job because he cited a prominent (black) academic's research about the efficacy of nonviolent and violent protests

* a utility company employee loses his job for accidentally making the "OK sign" without even knowing that the left was trolled into considering it to be a white power symbol

* https://twitter.com/wokal_distance/status/128148065056698777...

> I find it interminably frustrating that people (moreso on the right, and moreso in America, but neither exclusively) hold free speech above pretty much everything else. People have more than ONE right.

“Freedom of expression is the matrix, the indispensable condition, of nearly every other form of freedom.”

—U.S. Supreme Court Justice Benjamin N. Cardozo in Palko v. Connecticut

Association is a form of expression. To uphold the freedom of expression is to uphold others' right to stop associating with people. To "cancel" them, if you will.

That's not what "cancelling" means in this context--we're talking about concerted efforts to have people's employment terminated (or to dox them or send them explicit threats or etc). I don't see how this is anything other than harassment and intimidation, but even if it isn't, hate speech also falls under the rubric of "free expression", but it doesn't mean we can't (or oughtn't) use our own free speech rights to criticize and protest it.

> but it doesn't mean we can't (or oughtn't) use our own free speech rights to criticize and protest it.

I agree. But this goes in both directions. You can't claim to support free expression while saying that certain forms of speech are unacceptable. It is self-contradictory. Yet that's what harper's does. It criticizes certain forms of speech (criticism) while claiming to uphold the mantle of free expression. You can't have it both ways.

https://twitter.com/Popehat/status/1280992193591689221

> You can't claim to support free expression while saying that certain forms of speech are unacceptable.

I'm not making this claim; I'm claiming that it's inconsistent with free speech ideals. I'm not working to prevent anyone from expressing speech which isn't consistent with free speech ideals, and I'm certainly not trying to get anyone fired for their anti-free-speech ideals.

Which ideals? The ideal that speech should be free from criticism is self-contradictory. Criticism itself is speech, and so the claim that speech should be free from criticism is itself a condemnation of forms of speech.

All we can settle for is that no speech is unlawful. Because of that, I don't claim to support any particular "ideal of free speech". None of them are resolvable without contradiction.

> and I'm certainly not trying to get anyone fired for their anti-free-speech ideals.

I don't believe I've seen anyone fired solely for their abstract support for free expression. Care to give examples.

> Which ideals? The ideal that speech should be free from criticism is self-contradictory.

The ideal that we don't try to suppress speech we disagree with, but rather we encourage it to debate it.

> Criticism itself is speech, and so the claim that speech should be free from criticism is itself a condemnation of forms of speech.

You're confusing an idea with its expression. There's no inconsistency between free speech ideals and criticizing the idea that speech should be restricted. However, it would be inconsistent to suggest that someone oughtn't express that idea and especially to try to actively prevent someone from expressing it. In other words, anyone welcome to express a belief that censorship is a good thing, but I'm not violating free speech ideals by expressing disagreeing with them; quite the opposite!

> joshuamorton 25 minutes ago | parent | on: Blog Anonymously

All we can settle for is that no speech is unlawful. Because of that, I don't claim to support any particular "ideal of free speech". None of them are resolvable without contradiction.

> I don't believe I've seen anyone fired solely for their abstract support for free expression. Care to give examples.

You misunderstood my post. I was certainly not arguing that anyone has been fired for expressing abstract support for free speech. Rather, I was saying criticizing the idea of restricting speech is not inconsistent with free speech ideals, but rather trying to stop someone from expressing their desire for speech restrictions (and especially by trying to get them fired) would be inconsistent with free speech ideals. However, no one is trying to stop anyone from expressing their preferences for speech restrictions and certainly no one is trying to get anyone fired for expressing those preferences.

> Rather, I was saying criticizing the idea of restricting speech is not inconsistent with free speech ideals

Restricting in what way though? Formal restrictions: laws, assuredly this is inconsistent. But if the "restriction" not a formal restriction, but instead a reaction to criticism, then this is a meta-criticism of criticism, and that is counter to those ideals, because criticism itself is speech.

It's also potentially tortious interference:

https://smallbusiness.findlaw.com/liability-and-insurance/to...

This seems unlikely. From your link:

> For example, Adam could refuse to do business with Bill after learning that Bill has a contract or business relationship with an organization that Adam finds morally distasteful. Adam knows that his business is worth more to Bill than the other organization's and that his refusal to deal is substantially certain to cause Bill to terminate his contractual or business relationship with the other organization. Since his motivation is not improper, Bill's actions would not satisfy a claim of tortious interference by the other organization.

Not in all cases necessarily, but just read the next line:

> On the other hand, if Adam means to punish the other organization or put them out of business by taking the advantages of their relationship with Bill away, it is more likely that a tortious interference has occurred.

That's an anticompetitive practice. Which makes sense in the context of a tortious interference claim between two businesses.

But you can't sue <the collection of 20,000 twitter users> for collectively boycotting a business for doing a thing they disapprove of. If Sleeping Giants is immune to Tortious Interference claims, so is pretty much everyone else in this context.

> That's an anticompetitive practice.

There's no evidence that Adam and the targeted business are in competition. Having intent to harm is sufficient to be a relevant factor.

> But you can't sue <the collection of 20,000 twitter users> for collectively boycotting a business for doing a thing they disapprove of. If Sleeping Giants is immune to Tortious Interference claims, so is pretty much everyone else in this context.

That's also not an example of cancellation that we've been talking about in this thread, so that's irrelevant.

>Perhaps it would be better to say that there is a lot of powerful people who are working very hard to create such a culture, but they haven't yet fully achieved their mission.

I don't even think that is true. In fact in the overwhelming number of cases cited that I have seen the power dynamic seems to be the other way around.

In other words, it's about holding people with more power/privilege/status to account.

>There's no clear definition for when something becomes "a culture of cancellation"

I agree, which is why I think it's wrong to say that we do live in such a culture.

>but a lot of people are reporting that they are afraid to run afoul of the progressive party line for fear of repercussions.

I have (some) sympathy for that feeling, but I think most of the time it's unjustified. Like there's some "woke mob" who's coming to cancel you for not realising you're using the wrong pronouns to refer to somebody or something. That... just doesn't happen.

>Of course no one is talking about "calling your interviewer a cunt and not getting hired" when they talk about "cancel culture". Name one prominent instance wherein this happened and it was widely condemned as "cancel culture". This seems highly disingenuous.

I'm not saying that has actually ever happened. It's an absurd scenario - that was the point - but I concede I may have gone too far.

The person I was replying to asserted that "if speech has consequences that are administered outside the law, then it's not really free". Insulting an interview panel is an example of where it would be entirely reasonable for there to be consequences administered outside the law.

>“Freedom of expression is the matrix, the indispensable condition, of nearly every other form of freedom.” > >—U.S. Supreme Court Justice Benjamin N. Cardozo in Palko v. Connecticut

That just re-enforces my point. Instead of appealing to authority, can you explain WHY is it the matrix of nearly every other form of freedom. HOW is it the matrix for nearly every other form of freedom?

In Europe we have a comprehensive rights framework in the form of the European Convention on Human Rights[0]. The Convention includes, amongst others, the right to life (Article 2), the right to a respect for a private and family life (Article 8), and the prohibition of discrimination (Article 14).

None of these strictly have a dependency on freedom of expression (Article 10).

One of the principles of the ECHR is that rights should not be wielded as to undermine the others (Article 17) and courts must balance rights against each other if they're naturally in competition with each other.

I think the American "free speech over everything else" fundamentally stems from the fact that the US doesn't really have (m)any other fundamental rights. When all you have is a hammer...

[0] https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/European_Convention_for_the_P...

> I can't go in to a job interview and call the panel a bunch of cunts and then expect to be hired. That's a consequence of speech "administered outside the law".

I think there is a distinction between speech as an insult directed at specific people and speech that tries to argue for a general idea or opinion (for example see "fighting words").

> Free association is also a right that needs to be protected.

But we already limit it. For example, unless you are a religious institution hiring for a specific religious role, you cannot use "free association" to hire only members of your preferred religion. A church can require that it's pastor be a Christian. In-n-Out Burger cannot require that the cashier be a Christian.

If you look at the struggle for equality in the United States and elsewhere, the oppressed have relied on the right and principle of free speech to call attention to and better the injustice. The people in power, have heavily relied on the right of free association to preserve their privilege: for example clubs that only admitted men, or excluded Jews or Black people.

I find it interesting that in this time when we are so concerned about privilege, the right that has been used by the privileged ("Free Association") is being elevated while the right that has actually been used by the oppressed ("Free Speech") is coming under a lot of criticism.

So a culture that respects free speech something like this would occur

---

Person A: I think we should have strong border protection and limited immigration for these reasons ......

Person B: Well I understand and respect your position however I disagree because of these reasons.....

---

Now a society with out a respect for free speech it would go

Person A: I think we should have strong border protection and limited immigration for these reasons ......

Person B: You are a racist nazi, i am going to call your employer and tell them you are a racist nazi, and I will post on social media to get 1,000's more people to call you a racist nazi, i will also have news stories written telling the world what a racist nazi is, and after you are fired I am going to follow you to any new employer to make sure they know what a racist nazi you are...

-----

Cancel Culture, aka the twitter verse is option B today.

I think this is a compelling hypothetical, but I can't think of a single person who only said they were in support of strong border protection and limited immigration and was subject to anything like what you're saying. Could you provide an example of what you mean?

Here are examples of people who were cancelled without even saying anything [1]. One was due to a misunderstanding. Another was due to something a family member said.

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

I hadn't heard these stories, thank you! Sounds like we need bipartisan legislation for protecting political speech in the workplace, with some sensible limits.

JK Rowling is a good example of middlebrow views getting you and anyone who can be associated with you in trouble.

She has widely-held opinions like trans-women should be respected, but they are different from women. But if you log on to Twitter, she's vilified so much as a "transphobe" that people have been attacked for merely signing the same open-letter that she signed.

https://twitter.com/emilyvdw/status/1280580388495097856

For people that have been aware of her it's entirely obvious that Rowling is not engaging in the issue in good faith.

For example, before she published under her own name she published under the pen-name of "Robert Galbraith".

So far so what, right?

Well that's the name of an infamous psychologist who experimented on gay people - often people in the criminal justice system who did not or could not consent to treatment - in order to try and convert them to heterosexuality.

Rowling has also been a vocal defender of Maya Forstater who lost a case at the Employment Tribunal in a case about how she described trans people for "[violating] their dignity and/or [creating] an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment". That's not the view of some random trans rights campaigner, that's a judge who must take in to account freedom of expression as provided for in the European Convention on Human Rights.

There's much more when you scratch the surface of Rowling's transphobia.

> She has widely-held opinions like trans-women should be respected

Um no. She has admitted to being part of the known trans hate group GenderCritical.

Edit: not sure why I am getting downvoted. She uses talking points from the GenderCritial group when she writes and even mentions them by name and that group was banned by reddit for being a hate group.

This is the sort of vague "argument"-crafting I expect on Twitter but not on HN where you have unlimited words to make a point and add understanding to the world.

I googled "jk rowling gender critical" and all I see is a great google query if you want to find articles about how supposedly transphobic she is (without explaining what was specifically transphobic about what she said). If you're going to say someone has admitted to being part of a hate group, why not help us out and provide us some links?

The recent opinion essay she wrote:

https://www.jkrowling.com/opinions/j-k-rowling-writes-about-...

A rebuttal of that essay with citations:

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1270787941275762689.html

And an article talking about the banning of the hate subreddit r/gendercritical:

https://www.pinknews.co.uk/2020/06/29/reddit-bann-transphobi...

JK Rowling is a good example of quite the opposite — someone who uses flowery language to insinuate pretty heinous things about trans people, and then pretend she’s said something innocuous. At any rate, you can’t cancel a multi-millionaire.

You'd have to be more specific about the rest of your post. What exactly is heinous?

But the litmus test for whether cancel culture exists isn't whether you can cancel a millionaire, but to see how people react to what she said. Like writing a public letter to your employer to express disapproval for a coworker who signed the same Harper letter.

I'll side with Paul Graham on the matter. Here he replies to AOC: https://twitter.com/paulg/status/1281626457693982724 36min ago.

“I believe the majority of trans-identified people not only pose zero threat to others, but are vulnerable for all the reasons I’ve outlined. Trans people need and deserve protection. Like women, they’re most likely to be killed by sexual partners. Trans women who work in the sex industry, particularly trans women of colour, are at particular risk. Like every other domestic abuse and sexual assault survivor I know, I feel nothing but empathy and solidarity with trans women who’ve been abused by men.

So I want trans women to be safe. At the same time, I do not want to make natal girls and women less safe. When you throw open the doors of bathrooms and changing rooms to any man who believes or feels he’s a woman—and, as I’ve said, gender confirmation certificates may now be granted without any need for surgery or hormones—then you open the door to any and all men who wish to come inside. That is the simple truth.”

I could annotate her most recent post (and all of them) pointing out all of the dogwhistles, but this paragraph is pretty demonstrative of the style I was referring to. She starts from a defense of trans women, one that rings false because of all of the qualifications she makes which anti-trans activists will pick up on -- "Like women" "Natal girls and women" etc. etc., and then transitions seamlessly into harmful and dangerous tropes (men in dresses are coming to molest YOUR daughters!) from half a century ago. And of course, all of this is an overstated panic, and the solution of gender neutral bathrooms has been working just fine in the Bay Area and elsewhere. To be honest, that isn't even the most offensive dogwhistle in this article: https://www.jkrowling.com/opinions/j-k-rowling-writes-about-...

As far as Paul goes, I wonder who exactly he sees to be the powerless? To circle back to Rowling, is it the multi-millionaire author? Or trans people in the U.K.? These wealthy folks are not simply advocates, they're partisans. And not for a generic free speech, but simply the speech they believe is right.

> As far as Paul goes, I wonder who exactly he sees to be the powerless?

Why are only millionaires your candidates for who people who could be powerless in this situation instead of the vast majority of the non-millionaire population?

As for JK Rowling's essay, it's one of those things everyone should read for themselves. The vast majority of people reading it will not come to the conclusion that Rowling is anti-trans, and they will probably agree with her. Rather, there seems to be a lot more smoke than fire when you read it after hearing how anti-trans Rowling obviously must be.

I'm not a fan of the "dogwhistle" accusation. I just see it as a fashionable way to accuse someone of saying something that they didn't say. Like people claiming the Harper letter is clearly anti-trans when the only "trans" in it is "transgression": https://twitter.com/LLW902/status/1280547024014905346/photo/...

Evaluating words without context doesn't work. You have to evaluate the words people say in the context in which they say them. Language is socially constructed and the meanings of words change over time. "We must secure the existence of our people" doesn't really sound particularly ominous on its own, but I want to avoid someone who says that because there's a nonzero chance that association with them will put me in actual, physical, danger.

> Why are only millionaires your candidates for who people who could be powerless in this situation instead of the vast majority of the non-millionaire population?

I don't believe that's who Paul is advocating for, that's precisely the point. This piece by Osita Nwanevu is quite good on this point: https://newrepublic.com/article/158346/willful-blindness-rea....

> As for JK Rowling's essay, it's one of those things everyone should read for themselves. The vast majority of people reading it will not come to the conclusion that Rowling is anti-trans, and they probably agree with her.

That's the exact purpose of the language she uses. Morality is not as simple as gentle and convincing rhetoric, designed to play on the fears and sympathy of people who know nothing about trans people. The rhetoric that China uses to describe the Uighur population to the rest of the Chinese populace is quite similar.

> I'm not a fan of the "dogwhistle" accusation fad. I just see it as a fashionable way to accuse someone of saying something that they didn't say. Like people claiming the Harper letter is clearly anti-trans when the only "trans" in it is "transgression".

There's quite an extensive field of research into dogwhistle politics. Not reading into it doesn't mean it isn't real: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dog-whistle_politics.

The claims that the letter itself is transphobic are people over-reacting and over-extrapolating. But what precisely do you think Rowling signed the letter in service of?

Not to mention the replies on his tweet are full of people arguing nonsense like "it seems you have something to hide" , and "cancelling means shutting down voices", not realising that people would be much less angry if cancellation meant twitter account cancellation and not losing one's jobs.

example?

I wrote out a graf with an example downthread, I'd copy over, but posting the same thing twice feels a little redundant.

Well, first of all I disagree that her defense of trans women is disingenuous. Her points are well thought out. She points to specific situations where trans women are vulnerable. Just because she has another concern doesn't invalidate her concern for trans women being vulnerable.

So her heinous viewpoint is she has concern for girls in restrooms and locker rooms? Why is she not allowed to have this concern? The rest of the country/world is not San Francisco. Where I live I've never seen anything other than Men and Women restrooms. Sure adding a gender neutral bathroom could help with the issue but they don't exist in the vast majority of locations in the US. I have two high school daughters - one with autism. I'm sorry if its a dangerous trope from half a century ago - but my wife and I would be concerned with a trans woman sharing the locker room with them. Certainly my non-autistic daughter would feel uncomfortable. My daughter with autism wouldn't care because she has trouble with boundaries and being appropriate which makes it more concerning.

So now you'll say I don't care about the fate of trans people. Nope. It's possible to have concern for them and concern for non-trans people.

Those opinions are currently stigmatized as “racist dogwhistles” and “white supremacy”. I’m generally pro-immigration myself, but I believe it’s possible to advocate for limited immigration without being a racist.

> Could you provide an example of what you mean?

The CEO of Goya foods called Donald Trump a "great leader" and there's an active boycott of the brand as a result.

To be fair, that sounds a lot more reasonable. A CEO represents their company and their actions leading to people boycotting their company is just people voting with their wallet. People have boycotted small businesses due to the opinion of the business owner's children, even after persistent apologies by the business owner. In this case I don't even think there is anything significantly wrong. This isn't much different than a company sanctioned advertisement gone wrong.

While people are free to Boycott for any reason they want

A person that has respect for the concept of Free Speech WOULD NOT boycott a business simply because the CEO of that business supports the current president of the US.

That is simply NOT a reasonable reaction to learning of said support.

So no it does not "sound a lot more reasonable", it sounds like a perfect example of society losing respect for free expression

Well here is a sample for you:

https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2020/07/a-new-low-in-...

Except its not I have seen people called Neonazis just for being Republican or siding with Trump whether or not they are "Trump supporters" on issues. Even saying the name "Trump supporter" is evidence alone that there is an element of cancel culture. A woman was rejected from a college recently for posting a MAGA video on Tik Tok. Some developer is being called a Neonazi for protesting against an open source org that banned someone from a conference for wearing a MAGA hat.

I say this too often on HN: today they silence the voice of those you disagree with, tomorrow its your voice.

Not to mention: master-slave throughout tech, master branch in git, are all examples of absurd cancel culture. Meanwhile minorities shake their head.

It's not any different from republicans calling liberals libtards, antifa and communists whenever someone talks about medicare for all. Both sides do it to each other, right wingers just complain about it more because the majority of people who control social media platforms tend to be left leaning.

In general, people only want free speech for things they want to say, but not for things they disagree with.

Yes, but has an open Antifa supporter ever been denied college entrance or attending a conference because of that support? Or lost their job?

Not quite Antifa but here's an example of a Harvard grad losing her consulting job due to threatening violence against people who say "all lives matter" [1]

https://nypost.com/2020/07/01/harvard-grad-claira-janover-lo...

Yes, but you have to admit all the vast majority of firings lately are for people not having the proper left wing viewpoint.

Threatening violence, yes that will get you in trouble (hopefully). A little different than just minding your business wearing a MAGA hat.

You mean like Trump saying he could shoot someone and not lose voters in 2016? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iTACH1eVIaA

We've all heard this, but did he actually go out and shoot someone and do it? He was talking out of his *ss about how confident he was about his supporters. English isn't even my first language and I could tell that's what he meant.

Did the girl who threatened to stab "all lives matter" people actually go out and do it? No, but she got fired anyway.

Free speech does not mean that your words have no consequences.

Yes naming calling is very different from an organized effort to up end someone life.

Calling someone a "libtard" is not the same as 1,000 angry mob members calling a persons work place to get them fired

Companies aggressively take action against its employees who are pro-union, pro-labor, or anti-corporate. Example amazon 2 months ago: https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-fires-warehouse-worke...

Has any individual faced consequences for refusing to rename a branch? Are you saying that cancelling a word is a thing, and a dangerous one?

At this point people are diluting the phrase "cancel culture" to mean "thing I don't like that is vaguely related to politics or political correctness". That's not a useful concept. It's just a thing to be angry about.

That's not what cancel culture is, but it's usually the precursor to it. People who are upset over things that are not yet causing negative side-effects know that they eventually will because already what's happened is a bit much in many cases. You shouldn't be fired for things you do and say outside of work, period.

> You shouldn't be fired for things you do and say outside of work, period.

Why not? And are you claiming that this is simply a moral standpoint, or do you want to legally prevent employers from firing employees for off-work behavior?

There's plenty of companies that don't fire employees for the things they do outside of work, it's been like this for ages, why should this become a normal standard all of a sudden? Just to appease the ever changing feelings of others? Unless I actually breach my company contract in some fashion I don't understand why what I do outside of work has anything to do with my company, in fact, unless I'm some executive, it shouldn't ever matter.

That's not what I asked. You stated companies shouldn't do this. Just because some entities have chosen to act in a certain way doesn't mean that it is morally correct for all entities to act in that way.

Certain companies have been founded based on religious beliefs forever, that doesn't mean that it is morally correct for every company to have religious foundations. If you want to run your company that way, you're absolutely welcome to, but upon what reasoning do you claim it is wrong for me to act differently than you choose to?

If what someone does, does not actually affect a company negatively aside from a few emails or calls, I don't see why it should fire somebody. People will find someone that disagrees with them in virtually every single company.

Again, that's fine for you to act that way. But what you stated was the rule:

> You shouldn't be fired for things you do and say outside of work, period.

Which would presumably apply to all companies. Under what ethical basis is this a good rule? What if I want to fire someone for what they did outside of work? Why shouldn't I be allowed to do that? Why should your belief about how you would run your company affect how I run mine?

Conversations like these don't happen in a vacuum. There's the immediate context of the conversation and there's the historical context of people A and B.

And that's even assuming that the real meaning is in the text of the conversation rather than the subtext.

"All lives matter" is a good example. As a point divorced from any context it's an entirely correct and virtuous statement to make. But in the context of BLMthe subtext of the statement makes it a radically different one, and pointedly offensive, one.

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23789963.

>Free association is also a right that needs to be protected.

Does hiring process enjoy the right for free association? I'm pretty sure for employment specifically there's a huge chunk of legislation that governs it.

>Does hiring process enjoy the right for free association? I'm pretty sure for employment specifically there's a huge chunk of legislation that governs it.

Yes it does, and yes there is.

I'm not arguing that the right to free association should be absolute.

Both freedom of association and freedom of speech MUST be qualified if society is to function well.

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