In practice, disagreement is met with explanations and accusations of ”shifting overton window”, ”new normal” and ”normalization”.
Meaning that, Yes, you do have the right of free speach, but No, you should not be saying the wrong things.
You want your speech to be free from consequences -- i.e if you were to call someone a liar / cheat, they can't change their opinion of you based on what you've said? How is that compatible with their freedom of thought?
To me, freedom of speech means I shouldn't worry about legal repercussions for expressing wrongthink.
There is perhaps a separate discussion to be had about the sort of society we want to live in - do we want to promote open discussion, even if it can be divisive? But I don't think it's really a rights issue unless the consequences progress from social / economic to legal.
In the context of a workplace (being the topic of this post, after all), one such consequence is the loss of your job. Something that is very real these days, with so-called activists doxing people and trying to get them fired just because they dared to express a dissenting opinion.
Are you really saying that it should be impossible for someone to lose their job over what they say? If someone, for example, threatened to kill a co-worker, you don't think they should be fired? I appreciate that this is an extreme example, but when we talk about rights, don't we have to cover all examples of speech?
I'd agree that social media mobs trying to get people fired is a bad thing, that it's become too easy to whip up such mobs, and that as a society we should try to be more tolerant of other views. But I don't see somebody losing a job over something they've said as a rights issue - you don't have a right to a job.
The 'freedom of speech is not freedom from consequences' was popularized (repopularized?) and became a somewhat mainstream talking point in America around 2016-17 to justify political violence with the "punch a nazi" thing and stuff. It's the "paradox of tolerance".
The context of this thread (expressing political opinions at work) makes me think the other types of consequence are more relevant for this discussion though.
In non-America places (or in the few remaining unionised workplaces in America) you typically have some right to due process, and you can't just be terminated on a whim because you said something the boss didn't like.
If I was to say something offensive, I should be accorded due process, but the result of that process may be that I'm let go.
e.g. https://arstechnica.com/staff/2013/03/donglegate-is-classic-...
This might seem a bit pedantic, but I do think it's important. If something is a violation of someone's rights then there doesn't need to be any further discussion - it shouldn't be allowed. I think claiming that this is a free speech issue is not only wrong, but also shuts down much needed discussion about where we set the limits of our tolerance.
I don't consider myself a "speech absolutist", so I wouldn't agree that assigning, say, twitter mobbing to the category of "free speech issues" shuts down further discussion.
Sure, but see all the “punch nazis” memes. Examples:
https://web.archive.org/web/20210118210335/https://www.jwz.o...
Should employees be fired for expressing political positions at work that their employer disagrees with? Should all employees be told to focus on their companies mission instead?
Previously progressives seemed happy for the former to happen, but now they seem annoyed that they also might have their free speech squashed.
What kind of consequences are acceptable?
Personally, I'd prefer to live in a society where people are encouraged to have frank and respectful exchanges of views, and I'd prefer to work for a business where I'm not afraid to share my views, but equally where political discussion is not a large part of workplace culture.
But that's just my preference _- we're not discussing what should happen, but what rights people have, and no, I don't think you have the right to say whatever you like and keep your job.
That doesn't mean your boss should fire you because he disagrees with something you said, but it does mean it should be possible, provided you are accorded due process.
What might have some support is the idea that an employer could fire someone holding positions that are incompatible with the majority of other employees. We can argue about the best way to regulate this, but it's a different and horizontal view of determining the boundaries of civil coexistence.
For example, if the government allows its critics to speak freely, but then puts them in prison [1], is that free speech? No. So because of a consequence, speech is not free.
If someone says they hate you and want to kill your family, and you avoid them as a result, is that free speech? Yes - no significant number of people would say it is not. So here, despite a consequence, speech is free.
Some people connect free speech specifically with prior restraint. But prior restraint is also purely about consequences: if the government bans your book, what that actually means is that anyone distributing your book will be punished, and that's a consequence.
Some people connect free speech specifically with government action. But if a tech monopoly deletes its enemies from the internet, is that free speech? I would say it is not.
It's meaningless to be for or against free speech in some binary sense. What you can have is an opinion about the mapping from speech to consequences. You might think that speech should map to lighter consequences than it does at the moment across all speech, or to heavier consequences, for for some kinds of speech to be lighter and some heavier.
[1] Idi Amin is reputed to have said "There is freedom of speech, but I cannot guarantee freedom after speech."
Then people should stop stating the former as an argument, because "all speech should be free from all consequences" is what it means.
Similarly, people say that some countries have freedom of speech, when in reality every country has ways of punishing people for making certain noises out of their mouths - they just differ in which noises and to what degree.
The effect of this dishonesty is there is a hidden social contract on what you are, or are not, allowed to say, and everyone has to negotiate that. The article is about how people are becoming more self-censorious as a consequence of this social contract tightening up.
That phrase is always proposed as a rebuttal to "freedom of speech doesn't mean freedom from consequences," and always in the context that any consequences given will lead to a slippery slope. It doesn't contradict that premise at all if interpreted in the weak form, it only makes sense as a rebuttal in the strong form.
So either the so-called "free speech maximalist" side actually believes that people who argue free speech doesn't mean freedom from consequences are referring to all consequences rather than any consequences, or else we're all just in violent agreement with one another, and really just haggling over what those consequences should be.
I think this is a very good way of putting things. However, when it comes to answering the question, there's two ways of thinking about it -- how do I map other's speech to consequences with my actions (i.e morally) and how does the government map speech to consequences (i.e legally). I think only this second way of thinking is where the "right to free speech" comes in.
The view that I'm advocating is that I want the government to support a relatively strong version of free speech (i.e you should be able to say what you want without fear of being persecuted by the government, bar a few exceptions), but my personal map of speech to consequences is for me to decide. This means, for example, that I may choose to stop supporting a particular business because of something one of their employees have said, and may even shout about it on Twitter, but doing so wouldn't be an infringement of their right to free speech (it may be morally questionable).
The issue of calling someone "a liar / cheat" if they're not belongs to libel. Same way yelling fire in a crowded cinema is a public safety issue.
Expression of ideas is neither, and should not have "consequences".
>To me, freedom of speech means I shouldn't worry about legal repercussions for expressing wrongthink.
So is it OK if a mob (not a legal or govermnet entity) stomped on you and beat you to a bloody pulp?
If a church (not a legal entity) asked its members to spit on your face and abuse you on the internet?
If you were immediately fired?
>Expression of ideas is neither, and should not have "consequences".
Both libel and inciting imminent lawless action are expressions of ideas, that term is so vague as to be all-encompassing.
And the latter example has been upheld by the Supreme Court as protected free speech.
And yet courts all over the world are able to separate them from "expression of ideas" (here in Europe e.g. where we have and use libel laws).
It's not that hard either, unless we specifically go for edge case.
"X is a thief" can be libel.
"The climate is in danger/is not in danger and we should or shouldn't do so and so" is an expression of an idea, and can't be libel.
As long as you don't speak about someone in particular (a person or set of named persons, as opposed to ideas and abstract groups), and don't accuse them of being something criminal or derogatory (especially something they're not) you should be able to express any idea you like, how about that?
If I was an employee of a climate action advocacy group, wouldn't publicly stating that the climate is not in danger cause harm to my employer? Should they be forced to continue employing me despite that harm?
Again, I'm not advocating that this person should be fired, but it feels like overreach to say that it shouldn't be possible for someone to be fired for what they say.
No - legally and morally, this is not OK.
> If a church (not a legal entity) asked its members to spit on your face and abuse you on the internet?
Morally, I'd say this was wrong, but legally, I think they would be within their rights. But equally, if I were to respond by encouraging my friends to protest outside the church, I wouldn't be violating their right to freedom of speech.
> If you were immediately fired?
This would depend on the country and my contract, but I'd hope that immediate dismissal would be a violation of my labour rights - not my right to free speech.
The European humans right is a good example of this. EU has countries with widely different religions, widely different politics, geographic regions and cultures. If you want freedom of speech in such a diverse area you can't allow discrimination for expressing wrongthink, because any speech is a wrongthink somewhere except for views about kittens and ice cream.
The only major hard lines are explicit and direct threat of violence targeting person or persons, fraud, and national security (the later being a topic of debate).
Say what you want, but be prepared to stand by it and take responsibility for it, in a court of law if necessary.
Free speech is a right, and thus it requires the person exercising that right to understand that it does not absolve them from being held responsible for what they say or express.
Just like the 2nd amendment doesn't shield you from all possible consequences of exercising that right to bear arms.
Rights are not "get out of jail free" cards.
In the UK we don't have and have never had freedom of speech. In fact, we have some of the harshest libel laws in the world. There are very many consequences for saying or publishing things that you're not allowed to here.
But this post is about people self-censoring their opinions, particularly in the workplace, for fear of repercussions, and that is something that absolutely is getting worse. Like many others I steer clear of all of these topics myself, as even though I hold "approved" opinions on them. I fear that someone may wilfully misinterpret something I say and cause me irreparable harm by going on some weird crusade to have me fired and my life ruined, as that seems to be what normally happens these days.
If one has fear then one is not free.
> "But this post is about people self-censoring their opinions, particularly in the workplace, for fear of repercussions, and that is something that absolutely is getting worse. Like many others I steer clear of all of these topics myself, as even though I hold "approved" opinions on them."
In a way, this gives you just a little perspective on how homosexual people have felt for millennia, in fact how anyone with a sexuality, religion, political view or any other aspect that was sufficiently divergent from the status quo have been treated for millennia. In many parts of the world, some of those things still carry death sentences, and it's not very long ago that this was also the case in our western countries.
Being told that ones views are "not cool, dude" is extremely mild, and the threat of doxxing is wildly overblown, unless you are an actual political activist. And in that case, it still a lot more dangerous being an ultra-woke leftie than a white supremacist, considering the cases we've seen of violent attacks, car rammings at protests and so on.
> "I fear that someone may wilfully misinterpret something I say and cause me irreparable harm by going on some weird crusade to have me fired and my life ruined, as that seems to be what normally happens these days."
I'm sorry, but that is just horse manure. You hear of a small handful of cases, which are given completely overblown coverage in the media, because outrage sells. That is not an accurate representation of the world, it is a twisted media picture. It is especially bad in the UK, where the big media is overwhelmingly conservative.
As someone who probably agrees with you on a number of things, being of an old-school leftist persuasion (trade unions, progressive taxation, wealth taxes, completely legalize weed, trust that people have good intentions at heart, judge people by their actions, not by where they happened to be born), and someone who interacts with a lot of different companies from all over the spectrum, I simply cannot recognize your argument that people who don't hold "woke leftist" views are discriminated against.
On the contrary, there is still a undercurrent of conservative and somewhat xenophobic attitude at a lot of manual labor and otherwise "blue collar" workplaces. It has gotten a lot better, but it is still present.
And yes, people have been discriminated against for who they are, or what they believe, for a long long time. It was wrong then and it is wrong now.
That's not true - we do have freedom of speech.
It's just not absolute freedom of speech, which is a frankly horrible idea, because absolute rights almost always undermine other rights. (As an example, absolute freedom of speech would preclude all rights to privacy and confidentiality.)
What we have is a framework of fundamental rights, most of which are "qualified rights" and must be balanced with each other.
That it is a balancing act means that it's an imperfect system, for sure, but it's better not to allow the use of one right to trample over another.
There is no real distinction between freedom of speech and freedom of expression. Speech is expression, or rather it is a subset.
Section 10 of the Human Rights Act 1998 is the "Power to take remedial action" by ministers if a court has issued a declaration of incompatibility.
I think you mean Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which is given direct domestic legal effect by the Human Rights Act.
A10 states
>Everyone has the right to freedom of expression. This right shall include freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by public authority and regardless of frontiers.
which I'm not sure you can claim isn't "freedom of speech".
I did state earlier that it's a qualified right, and those qualifications are:
>The exercise of these freedoms, since it carries with it duties and responsibilities, may be subject to such formalities, conditions, restrictions or penalties as are prescribed by law and are necessary in a democratic society, in the interests of national security, territorial integrity or public safety, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals, for the protection of the reputation or rights of others, for preventing the disclosure of information received in confidence, or for maintaining the authority and impartiality of the judiciary.
but this hardly seems like it undermines freedom of speech. There are limits, but they must be "necessary in a democratic society" (which can be - and often is - the basis for a legal challenge by those who think their A10 rights have been violated) and for a defined, and limited, number of reasons.
Like I also said above, if you remove (some of) these qualifications then you end up with perverse results, like undermining the right to privacy or justice itself.
> Meaning that, Yes, you do have the right of free speach, but No, you should not be saying the wrong things.
I would argue, that you do disagree with what I said.
You are just providing reasons why it is acceptable for why you should not be saying the wrong things.
Those consequences range from people not wishing to associate with you anymore at the mildest end, to actual fines and jail time, if your speech can be proven to have directly incited violence (the bar for which various according to country and jurisdiction).
You can't just claim that "I have no control over these words that are coming out of my mouth, and I take no responsibility for them", free speech doesn't work like that.
And if your strongest argument for saying something is "I have the right to say this", then maybe reconsider whether it's actually worth saying.
You could say I have the "freedom to take anything I want" except I mustn't take anything that belongs to somebody else. Do I really have any freedom with that restriction in place?
Personally I don't think we have freedom of speech (in the UK, certainly legally we do not). You have to be careful of what you say and who you say it to. Maybe that's OK, and free speech was a failed experiment. But to claim we have that freedom whilst restricting it thus is just wankery.
The really important thing here is that your freedom does not overrule the freedom of others. It's freedom of speech, not an obligation to listen to or agree with or condone what you say.
As always, if your greatest argument for saying something is that you have the right to say it, maybe reconsider what you're about to say.
I'm curious to know what not having freedom of speech would look like.
Words can and do cause harm, just as actions can and do. You don't see very many people seriously arguing for "freedom of action", because that would be an utterly chaotic and brutal society, even worse than the extremes of feudalism or warlordism.
Actions have consequences, and words have consequences. Arguing that you cannot be held responsible for the words that come out of your mouth or text written by your hand, is completely ridiculous.
Often I see the very same people who argue fiercely for personal responsibility above all, turn around and argue for free speech absolutism, seemingly unaware of the absurd incompatibility of those two stances.
If a Catholic school teacher declares publicly that women should have the right to choose to have an abortion, what do you think her chances are of retaining her employment at that school?
Conservatives would claim that the school has a right to fire the teacher, because it's just freedom of religion, as if somehow that particular freedom should supersede the others.
So what changed?
Oh, right, the country has shifted left and Christianity is not the dominant social force that it used to be. One man's belief in a man in the sky is no more important than another's alignment with a set of moral values.
If "freedom of speech MEANS freedom from consequences", as you suggest, then what would be the point of speaking with our absolute freedom, as no one would be allowed to form an opinion on it?
Freedom of speech has always meant "freedom of speech doesn't mean freedom from consequences" in America, it is just that you have the right to say it and be free from government persecution. You can and will be judged on it socially, which is what this paper says is not right, as workplace employees are self censoring their views because people will take a principled stand on their opinions.
This paper seems to want people to be able to state exactly what they please and for there to be no social repercussions - which the first quote you have acknowledges there are.
"I do not agree with what you say but I will defend to the death your right to say it" contains "I do not agree", meaning that the individual who uttered it has made an opinion based on someone else's speech.
With this in mind, "I do not agree with what you say but I will defend to the death your right to say it", and "freedom of speech doesn't mean freedom from consequences", are totally compatible. You can both fight for a restriction on state power, and have a personal reaction to what somebody has said.
> We asked whether it is “fair or unfair for people who say grossly offensive things to be at risk of losing their livelihoods?” Nationally, 48 percent believe it is “fair,” but this figure rises to 65 percent for social democrat-aligned Labour voters, compared with 39 percent for right-leaning Conservative voters.
Meaning right leaning are more likely to live and let live.
The "left" in Britain arguably haven't won an election since 1974.
The right had fewer splits, and arguably none of them is comparably structural.
The left might have lost a lot of elections, but I think you can still make a case for the original point the "right-of-centre" are a minority in the UK, even if it's only a narrow majority. The Conservatives haven't won a majority of the popular vote in nearly 90 years (but then neither has any party)
https://www.statista.com/statistics/717004/general-elections...
Ashcroft and Ipsos confirm that older people were more likely to vote tory, with >50% only in the over 65 range.
If you're a HN poster you're likely in a workplace with
1) Under 45s, certainly under 65s
2) ABC1
3) University education
All of those are 3 indicators of low 'right wing' (defined as voting Tory or whatever Farage's party is) support, so it's not surprising most people in the workplace of the average HN poster vote not-tory.
And yet many people do just that, and feel good about it.
Yes. Exactly.
What's the problem with that?
Yes, you have the right to do what you want, but No, you should not do the wrong things.
Have you the right to drive?
Yes.
Have you the right to run over pedestrians?
No.
It's simply how societies work.
freedom starts where ignorance ends
the freedom of one ends where the right of another begins.
and hundreds other similar quotes...