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Comment by lucideer | Hacker News Reader

> Freedom of speech is an ideal that applies to all people and all spaces

Is it though?

Those outside of the US who subscribe to this ideal seem heavily influenced by US culture in my experience. I'm not aware of non-US sources of the idea.

Add to that I've never really seen anyone espouse this ideal that actually understood (or could articulate) what "free speech" even means...

Certainly in the context of Musk's campaign, neither he nor most of his followers are genuine in their support for "free speech". Musk in particular has been a staunch supporter of censorship in practice, and has only paid lip service to free speech for clicks.

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> Those outside of the US who subscribe to this ideal seem heavily influenced by US culture in my experience. I'm not aware of non-US sources of the idea.

I think it unlikely that Ancient Athens was heavily influenced by US culture on the topic of free speech as an ideal: https://www.britannica.com/biography/Socrates/The-Athenian-i...

In ancient Athens they spoke (ancient) Greek, so no they didn't have an ideal of "free speech", as in the modern US, they had ideals of isegoria and parrhesia - separate concepts that Athenians at least recognised were often irreconcilably in conflict with another. Any such nuance is completely lost in most modern applications.

> Those outside of the US who subscribe to this ideal seem heavily influenced by US culture in my experience. I'm not aware of non-US sources of the idea.

The idea predates the existence of the US.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_speech

An article on a wholly US topic, that has one small line saying the following:

> It is thought that the ancient [Athenian democratic principle](hyperlink) of free speech may have emerged in the late 6th or early 5th century BC.

The hyperlinked page on democratic principle notably has no mention of free speech.

I've replied to a sibling commenter on Athenian "free speech" parallels - much of their association with modern concepts is appropriation.

Freedom of speech isn't a "wholly US topic". It's understood and accepted in most democratic countries.

> The right to freedom of expression has been recognised as a human right in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and international human rights law by the United Nations. Many countries have constitutional law that protects free speech.

> The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, adopted during the French Revolution in 1789, specifically affirmed freedom of speech as an inalienable right.[7] Adopted in 1791, freedom of speech is a feature of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution

> Those outside of the US who subscribe to this ideal seem heavily influenced by US culture in my experience. I'm not aware of non-US sources of the idea.

No, not at all. There are plenty of countries who go to greater lengths to protect their individual rights without the US even registering as a suggested influence. Most countries which managed to transition away from authoritarian oppressive regimes did grew political antibodies to ensure the right to freely express your ideas without being subjected to persecution as it happened in the not so distant past.

I don't think that the Bill of Rights, for example, was influenced by US culture.

"the freedom of speech and debates or proceedings in Parliament ought not to be impeached or questioned in any court or place out of Parliament;"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_of_Rights_1689#Provisions...

That's a Safe Space for specific people, not Freedom of Speech as a general principle.

I don't think that slaves in the US enjoyed free speech.

For sure. People many other places dont really care about free speech. They are totally OK with government censorship in favor of social harmony.

Those tend to be places where saying "I believe in free speech" lands you in jail, so there is reporting bias.

>Is it though? >Those outside of the US who subscribe to this ideal seem heavily influenced by US culture in my experience. I'm not aware of non-US sources of the idea.

Individual rights of expression predate the US and are part of a collection of ideals in a long tradition that finally exploded in the Enlightenment in Western Europe. Don't forget how much of a grip the Church had on suppressing books and ideas, including meting out punishment.

The erasing of the history of freedom of speech including, within the US, forgetting the facts within the 20th century where it was primarily conservatives who advocated for suppression and censorship, is a very awful misreading of a general principle, especially by, today, people who identify as left.

Freedom of speech is an ideal intended to protect unpopular opinions. It's an individual right in the sense that the individual may be at odds with others, and just because it is a minority view it should not be suppressed.

Today the Zeitgeist is saying: freedom of speech is a silly American concept, and it's just to defend people on the hard right who should be deplatormed.

False, and false.

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