Comment by dionidium | Hacker News Reader

Comment by dionidium | Hacker News Reader

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> I'm referring to the proliferation of hate groups, that flourished under the defense that they represented "free speech" I don't think it's quite what Swartz had in mind, though even if he felt it defensible at the time (as I would have) his feelings on the matter may have become more nuanced (as have mine) since then.

Setting aside the question of whether this has actually happened like you say it has, the much broader critique I'd offer is that nobody who was defending free speech from the left in the 1970s [0] would be surprised that hate groups are allowed to operate under the cover of those protections. It used to be taken as a given on the left that free speech is so important that it is worth defending the right to the worst kinds of speech.

I see this a lot, recently -- this sentiment that yeah free speech is important, but you have to consider that nobody expected it to be used like this -- and that's wrong. Your liberal predecessors did know that it would be used like this and they explicitly and clear-headedly defended it, anyway.

[0] The ACLU defended literal Nazis: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Socialist_Party_of_Am...

> whether this has actually happened like you say it has

This is a fairly contrarian line to take. How would you say that it hasn't?

> you have to consider that nobody expected it to be used like this

To me this seems a little bit of a naive take. Nobody is arguing that free speech should be curtailed - at least not in any legal sense. But as a principle it does compete against various other ones, such as decency and respect, not to mention security and business concerns.

It's the people arguing that free-speech as a right is absolute and overrides all else, and whatsmore outside of a purely legal setting (i.e. not just that the state can't prosecute you, but that it gives you the right to insult, and belittle people) that are missing the point.

Voltaire offered to defend the right of his opponents to express their thoughts, but did not volunteer to give them a platform, or even to listen.

> The ACLU defended literal Nazis

I don't see a conflict here. The state should be blind, after all it's important for democracy that Nazis and other dodgy straw men should see their side of the story aired, and thus buy in overall. It doesn't mean that society as a whole can't make judgements on the value of Nazism.

> This is a fairly contrarian line to take. How would you say that it hasn't?

When the KKK marched in Washington in 1925, there were 30k participants and more than 100k others showed up to watch.

What I'm arguing is that we are not in fact experiencing unprecedented times that call for new restrictions. The left lived through that and maintained their commitment to defending free speech.

> we are not in fact experiencing unprecedented times that call for new restrictions

I'm sorry, I think we might be talking cross purposes here ...

I was talking about Aaron Swartz specific advocacy around digital free speech, which reddit embodied spiritually up until rather recently. Some of the community activity went very far down the rabbit hole indeed. I was speculating if Aaron Swartz might have experienced some kind of dissonance at that, though public discourse being what it is he might not have been able to express that ... but alas he did not live to see his views challenged thus.

Of course there are historical parallels to this, across history and many other aspects of society. I don't see how the need to continue this discussion is any less relevant today than it was then though.

There are a couple of things feeding into this.

One is that everything is national or global now, so if there is one Nazi anywhere, everybody hears about it and misleads people into thinking there are more of them than there are. This also feeds into trolls pretending to be Nazis because they see what a rise it gets out of people, thereby causing people to overestimate their number even more.

The second is that there is always a boogeyman. In the early 20th century it was anarchists. Then communists had a good long run. It became terrorists after 9/11. Now it's racists.

You can tell when this is happening because the proposals are to censor/incarcerate/kill some vile subhuman Enemy who cannot be reasoned with, with isolated instances being exaggerated excessively. Whereas if there were actual Nazis as a meaningful political force you would see e.g. serious attempts to re-institute segregation or have to fight hard to prevent Nazis from censoring you.

Really doubt he would have argued in favor of corporate NDAs.

The joke here, is that it was is activism against corporate secrecy that got him into serious trouble and led probably to his eventual suicide.

What I mean is that everyday "free speech" in the legal sense is already curtailed (and accepted to be so) by various other concerns.

I was a free speech absolutist like you are describing until I realized that my belief was based on the fear of a “slippery slope” developing from limiting any kind of “hate speech.” I’m older now and I’ve recognized that a slippery slope argument is a weak minds way of coping with difficult ideas. It takes an approach that only considers one way travel when it comes to the destination or rather conclusion. There are too many possibilities to allow the the possibility of a “slippery slope” to guide our decisions. I have always viewed the ACLUs defense of nazis as being this kind of behavior as well, to prevent further erosions down the road that are being viewed as an inevitable conclusion to limiting speech to any degree.

I would say the other reason my views on freee speech have evolved because I now see “hate” as a virus of the mind and it is easily spread through the internet in the most deceitful and cunning ways, leading to destruction and violence toward the person or people it is directed at.

The issue is the sentiment that many free speech advocates are significantly less concerned where freedom of speech or expression at risk is being left wing.

When it is right wing suppressing speech or freedom, all is cool. When someone protests them, suddenly the protest itself is threat to free speech. The insuation is that free speech is less likely to be invoked to protect left or extreme left speech.

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