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Comment by liquidise | Hacker News Reader

Disc: american commenting on uk legal matters.

> people always show that it has never really been about freedom (emphasis mine)

Which people? They always act this way? It was never about freedom, for anyone? Who could possibly say this authoritatively?

I think the last ~5 years has put a bright light onto freedom of speech. It is a complicated topic with some surprisingly nuanced positions. Does it include the ability to say what you want wherever you want? Or without consequence? There are multiple vectors to it.

I consider myself a free speech advocate. But i have no military fetishism that you claim is one of the root causes for free speech support (a weird combo). I support free speech because... i think people speaking their mind freely is a net positive. That appears to be increasingly controversial these days. That's fine, more room for discussion.

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The largest media outlets that beat the freedom of speech drum (fox, other right wing sites) never do so in response to people whose speech they don't like being silenced.

One major factor is a disagreement in what counts as speech. I see this from people individually discussing topics and from official stances of platforms, even supposedly free speech platforms.

One of the safer to discuss at work examples is how loud can speech be while still being speech. Is a concert playing loud music free speech? Is it still free speech when the music is at such a level it causes hearing damage for those attending? Even if some attendees are children? What if it is only temporary hearing damage? What level of loudness creates enough harm to another person for it to stop being considered speech? Where is the distinction between me causing you bodily harm with airwaves or with punches?

Another example is bright lights. Having a sign up is free speech. But what if the sign is well lit up at night? How many photons can I send toward you before it stops being speech and starts being violence? Clearly aiming a powerful enough laser to cause eye damage would violate it. But what if it was a weaker red laser that I was shining through your window. If it is the aspect of targeting you that matters, then when if I set up a bill board and put a bunch of red lasers pointers that moved around randomly to draw attention, so it is no longer targeting just at you.

Then there is all sorts of problems one can get into with photos and the numbers that represent them.

“ > people always show that it has never really been about freedom (emphasis mine) Which people? They always act this way? It was never about freedom, for anyone? Who could possibly say this authoritatively?”

thanks for asking the tough questions

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