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Comment by waynecochran | Hacker News Reader

I find it strange that "free speech" has to be defended in the US today. This is a bedrock concept to a free country.

Unfortunately, for a lot of people, many principles which were previously non-negotiable have become subordinate to short-sighted tribalism.

I'm not sure why that is, exactly, but a credible hypothesis might be that by living in filter bubbles, people simultaneously become less exposed to the shared humanity of their opponents, and also rewarded by their in-group for the "righteous anger" they express towards those opponents.

After all, if you're sure that your opponent is going to lie or cheat or kill you, then what's so bad about lying or cheating or killing them first? It may even feel like you're de-escalating the situation if you "only" censor people who you think are going to kill (someone like) you. (Don't get me wrong, some calls to violence definitely shouldn't be spread, but I think that people are too quick to justify their censorship that way).

I think it all stems from this idea that we can't be made uncomfortable ever, or we are a victim. The whole point of colleges and universities was to be confronted with some very uncomfortable ideas and to argue your position on them. This is how free societies work.

But as you said, currently all of our mundane day-to-day dopamine incentives in the West are aimed at the precise inversion of that. Not a good thing.

It doesn't need to be defended. Instead, the term is used as a cudgel to justify all manner of nasty behavior and demand no criticism in return.

Free Speech by definition allows for criticism in return.

Consider: if one wishes to justify "nasty behavior", as you call it, using the principle of Free Speech and then tries to also demand that no criticism be returned -- then this individual is clearly non-serious about Free Speech concepts.

People who advocate Free Speech on the internet seem to usually mean Speech Free From Criticism. The "anti-free speech" things they complain about is just other people excising their own free speech.

In my experience, the "anti-free speech" things they complain about are generally the actions taken by powerful private institutions (PayPal cutting people off, complete bans from the Social Media town square) that prevent individuals from having the right to exercise freedom of speech in practice.

It does.

Yet I've had friends harassed by "free speech advocates" for offering professional criticism of bigoted ideas. It becomes very clear that the people who have managed to plant a flag on "free speech" as a thing that needs defending are simply using it for other means.

That is truly unfortunate to read.

Those people are not serious about free speech; they are deeply hostile to it. If they were serious about free speech, they would welcome the criticism.

In my experience, it's not the criticism that free speech advocates complain about (plenty of weak phonies do, to be fair, because they are not secure in their principles or viewpoints). In my experience, free speech advocates complain mostly about the moves of private organizations against individuals' right to free speech. The bans from the social media "public square," (suddenly more important during Covid...) or when someone gets cut off of PayPal for dubious political reasons, these things do matter. They may not be strictly "unconstitutional," or even really illegal, but they are dangerous, and they are against the ideals of a free society.

Free speech exists to prevent "nasty behavior". The whole point is that you speak your mind instead of getting violent. The whole idea is to invite criticism for "nasty behavior," and to allow everyone to see why that behavior is nasty, what's wrong with it, and why.

It’s not strange. It has always been an enlightened minority who defend freedom of speech against popular sentiment, which actually opposes it. The ACLU, when it was a civil rights organization that defended freedom of speech, famously had to educate the country through the courts by defending the rights of Nazis to hold a march. Their defense was unpopular and they lost a lot of members. A minority understands that if free speech does not include protection for odious speech, it is meaningless.

Yep. There is no freedom of speech unless the most batshit insane ideas can see the light, be understood truthfully, and criticized freely.

And, I'd add: we need to respect the rights of the crazies to speak their mind. Yes, respect. Otherwise, you have people stuck in their crazy bubble, following only social media accounts that agree with them, and not listening to any criticisms of their points of view because everyone treats them like a horrible pariah and has never bothered to explain why their ideas are wrong, and they've never had a chance to truly argue their position (which is how you suss out what you actually believe).

And what do we get when we don't let people with bad ideas speak their minds freely, argue their position, and listen to arguments from others?

We get January 6th.

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