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Comment by sigmar | Hacker News Reader

>That same year, members of Stanford’s chapter of the Federalist Society, the conservative legal organization, filed a complaint against a law student who had mocked the group with a satirical flier. The university briefly put the student’s graduation on hold but eventually said the flier was protected speech.

Sorry, what? This stands out to me way more than some heckling at a speech that this article seems focused on. Really feels like what gets lost in these conversations is how "free speech" should mean you can voice opinions without having your livelihood threatened, not some requirement that people are literally quiet while you are talking.

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There's more to the story. The flyer presented itself as a Federalist Society flyer including using their logo and template, and there was indeed some confusion about whether or not it had been put out by the Society:

https://www.thefire.org/research-learn/stanford-federalist-s...

This is common in parody.

People not being sure if “violent insurrection can be an effective approach to upholding the principle of limited government” was genuinely espoused by the Society makes the parody even more meaningful.

The point is here, that even if someone intent is to parody, this can transition into actual defamation depending on the context.

For example, if someone put up a poster, with your name and photo on it, and the poster said "I, the person in the photo, support Killing a bunch of people, on this date, at this time, at this location", this would be defamation.

When you start getting into actual death threats, this can cross the line into illegal defamation.

And no, defamation is not protected by the 1st amendment, nor are many types of death threats.

Guess we better abundantly optimize for those corner cases until all speech is illegal.

No, actually. There is no slippery slope that inevitably leads to all speech being illegal.

Instead, the court system in the USA mostly does a pretty good job determining what is or is not speech, and ways of having very limited restricts on speech that only prevent the extremely harmful stuff, while maintaining people's rights.

Addressing these "corner cases" is exactly what the court system does, and it has resulted in a society where the vast vast majority of speech is protected, and only very extreme and damaging edge cases are banned.

The example posted above fails the "reasonable person" test, which was my point.

Only if you're drawing meaning from the fact that people believe their own stereotypes. "Left-wing students fell for parody written by other left-wing students" does not constitute evidence of the truth of the stereotypes contained in the parody.

Exactly. Ascribing the worse possible motives to the people you disagree with is the only form of hate that is still acceptable.

You just ascribe "hateful" motives to anyone disagrees with you, then suddenly your own common, mediocre, garden variety hate is elevated to a higher moral purpose. You're not a hater (you are), you're fighting hate! (not really).

There are a ton of people that operate under this delusion.

"People not being sure if she genuinely made a deal with the Devil, is just more proof that she is a witch."

It's not actually. If you parody a corporation this way they're going to come after you and nobody will be surprised. If you want to parody Google or Apple or whomever then you need to make a company name that's different but clearly the one you mean. Hence The Circle.

They can try. They'll generally fail. Trademark law has specific parody exceptions, which permits things like https://variety.com/2022/digital/news/adam-mckay-fake-chevro..., https://www.huffpost.com/entry/shell-arctic-ready-hoax-green..., and https://www.cnet.com/tech/mobile/spoof-apple-site-touts-bend... to exist. No changing the company name was necessary in any of these.

"The Circle" isn't a parody. Social commentary, perhaps, and its commercial nature as a film would make reaching the threshold for parodic fair use harder. https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/parody

As a speaker, isn’t your livelihood threatened if people yell over your speech?

A brief interruption to express disagreement is one thing, but a constant yelling simply to drown out the event participant is a completely different thing.

The judge in question has a lifetime appointment. His livelihood is not threatened.

His livelihood as a speaker at the college is.

Can you provide the definition of livelihood you’re using so we can share context?

How about “viability to perform a freely chosen pursuit and possibly receive remuneration or rewards regardless of whether that money is required to eat a buy one get one free Big Mac”?

Under this definition, my livelihood threatened because my employer doesn't pay me as much as I'd prefer.

I fail to see your example as fitting within my eloquent definition. You are free to work for less than you want from your employer; I presume they are not trying to prevent this.

I am not free to work for more than my employer wants to pay.

People are free to make fun of anyone when they speak, even when it's their job to speak. It's called "heckling" and is a common thing. I'm sure it's not enjoyable to experience and people can be required to leave of course. I don't understand your obtuse comments around this.

Your not following. I never argued that noone can make fun of another person, disrupt or heckle. Such discourse is perfectly normal in elementary and middle school and is observed by similarly elementary adults. It is the continuous disruption by a single or a few participants that is unproductive and denies any communication or discourse for the parties. We are talking about a law school here, where topics are non-trivial and nuanced … not the Jerry Springer Show … or third grade.

For example, it would be harassment if I show up at your birthday party at a restaurant patio and repeatedly yell that you are a pedantic, argumentative, picayune anarchist who should have more manners and respect the opportunity of others to speak their opinions as well. Saying it once or twice is another matter.

If I were a right wing judge who liked to give speeches at colleges, I'd probably add a clause that I get paid either way (assuming this was a paid gig). Honestly, the publicity will probably help him sell books or whatever it is he does as a side hustle anyway.

Sounds like you are arguing that we need to restrict free speech to protect free speech.

My argument is simple. Humans can typically only hear one person speak at a time. In order to have a proper societal discussion, there needs to be some rules of engagement to ensure that listeners can get something out of what is being said. Yelling over people constantly with the express intent of preventing that person’s audience from hearing what they are saying is harassment, not free speech.

People have a right to speech. They don't have a right to be heard. You are suggesting that we stop some people from speaking to allow other people to be heard. You are making an argument against free speech and not for it.

No. You are creating a red herring. What is speech if no one can hear it or read it? If I intercepted the post you just made and scrambled it with random characters so noone else would understand it, are you still calling that free speech? How is that effectively different than some people purposefully yelling over your conversations and scrambling the sound waves entering the intended listener’s ear?

>What is speech if no one can hear it or read it?

Take your thought process here a step further. If we establish that speech needs to be heard in order to satisfy the principle of free speech, how many people need to hear something before it qualifies?

>If I intercepted the post you just made and scrambled it with random characters so noone else would understand it, are you still calling that free speech?

Are you arguing that downvoting a comment until the text is gray and difficult to read is HN infringing on a user's free speech?

No, speech needs to be hearable by those who would choose. You're free to shout your own counter-message, but from far enough away that you're adding signal not noise.

Similarly, trying to form a barricade and keep people from reaching the speaker and hearing them is an attempt to silence their speech.

> how many people need to hear something before it qualifies?

Thats an easy question to answer.

The answer would be whoever voluntarily chooses to listen to that speech, of their own free will, without other people coming in to make significant disruptions (especially illegal disruptions, or acts of illegal physical violence) of that voluntary interaction between speaker and hearer.

> Are you arguing that downvoting a comment..... is HN infringing on a user's free speech?

A better example would be a 3rd party going to the server room where Hacker News is stored, destroying the servers with a hammer, and then saying "Your speech isn't infringed on! You were allowed to say whatever you wanted! You just don't have the right to be heard, because I the uninvolved 3rd party broke into the server room and destroyed the server hardware!"

Yes, if this is what happened, this is starting to get close to censorship. Especially if it is not a one time thing, and is instead continual or illegal.

Also, if you want a better explanation, just go look up how free speech works in the US.

All these crazy hypotheticals, that you think are somehow gotchas, have mostly been settled by the US court system.

And the US court system has side strongly in favor of protecting free speech, while also being able to deal with these very limited and rare exceptions, to prevent extremely damaging content, like direct and immediate calls or violence, or the like.

This has all been covered before, mostly, in a good way, by the US legal system and court precedent.

> People have a right to speech. They don't have a right to be heard.

Time and place restrictions are perfectly legal.

A school, government fund or otherwise, or even the government itself, is absolutely free to prevent a mob of students, from shouting down speakers.

And they can use the force of their position as the university, or the force of law to do so.

Time and place restrictions absolutely can help promote speech, and are legal.

The hearer’s right is well established as part of the First Amendment: https://www.mtsu.edu/first-amendment/article/1549/right-to-r...

That is not a right of the speaker. The right to hear is not the same thing as the right to be heard.

Either way, it doesn't refute my original point. People are asking for certain people's free speech rights to be curtailed in order to protect the free speech rights of others. That is effectively the same argument that the students are often making in these situations. Speech should be restricted when it infringes on other people's rights. The pro-free speech side just likes to play no true Scotsman games and redefine stuff they don't like as not really speech. But if the audience members heckling the speaker can be speech unworthy of protecting because it infringes on other people's rights, then we also need to evaluate what the speaker on the stage is saying and whether their words infringe on the rights of anyone else.

You should read Dean Martinez's letter, which describes the longstanding legal perspective on this. Although one can always raise philosophical questions and claim that free speech advocates are just trying to silence people that don't agree with them, this isn't really an accurate representation of their position. Actual free speech advocates (e.g., FIRE) want their opponents to be free to host talks without disruptive heckling from people with whom they (the free speech advocates) would agree.

The article links to a memo written by the law school's dean. It's worth a read because it addresses this very topic with legal citations.

If I went to right in front of your house, and blared a horn as loud as possible 24/7, making it impossible for anyone to hear each other—you would call the police and have me arrested, and rightly so. You would not welcome my actions as "free speech."

I don't think you realized it, but that is exactly my point. I was highlighting the inconsistencies that come from the pro-free speech side of these arguments. No one actually wants unconditional free speech, but some people like to pretend they do. I'm not one of those people. I understand some restrictions on speech are necessary, such as the example you just gave.

I believe in "unconditional free speech" in that I think you have the right to express any opinion*. The manner in which you communicate that opinion can be restricted; otherwise, all laws would be nullified ("but your honor, I murdered Frank to express my disapproval of the Fed's monetary policy! It was free speech!"). However, these restrictions must be agnostic to the content of the speech.

* with defamation (edit: and false advertising, perjury, etc) exception, for things you know are lies when you say them.

>The manner in which you communicate that opinion can be restricted;

This is a direct contradiction of "unconditional free speech". Once you allow the manner of speech to be restricted, free speech is no longer unconditional. You just want to believe in "unconditional free speech" because freedom is great and being pro-freedom makes us all feel warm and fuzzy inside. That ideal can't stand up to the complexities of the real world when the rights of multiple people come into direct conflict with each other. There need to be restrictions in both the manner and the content. The only content restriction you listed was defamation, but I have a feeling you would be against at least some of the following: fraud, perjury, false advertising, copyright infringement, threats, incitement to violence, coercion, blackmail, revenge porn, child porn, and the list goes on and on. Suddenly there are a lot of conditions on that "unconditional" and it becomes less clear why some further restriction such as outlawing hate speech would be a monumental infringement on freedom of speech.

> fraud, perjury, false advertising

These, like defamation, fall under "things you know are lies when you say them." I should have phrased that differently, edited.

> copyright infringement, threats, incitement to violence, coercion, blackmail, revenge porn, child porn

Not expressions of opinion, so don't fall under my definition of free speech. (Fair use ensures that copyright law doesn't conflict with free speech/expressing opinions).

> outlawing hate speech

Unlike all the extant restrictions you mentioned, this would make it illegal to express a particular opinion or belief, that you don't know is empirically false.

> complexities of the real world

I do believe this is a nuanced issue with answers that are not always clear-cut. Specifically, it can be hard to tell where government (which has to be fair and neutral) ends, and private organizations (which have the right to their own opinions) start. Everyone interacts with the government in some way, via road system, taxes, regulation, grants, public contracts, etc.

You seem to be contradicting yourself. Why would you need a special exception for "things you know are lies when you say them" if you are only categorizing opinions as speech? Seems like you would support the government making a blanket ban on all lies. That wouldn't infringe on the First Amendment according to your definition of speech only being about an expression of opinions.

Also, I don't know why you are categorizing that group as not expressions of opinions. It is certainly possible to frame opinions into those various categories. The most obvious examples are the old "it would be a shame if something happened to..." threats that you see in every bad mob movie.

> you would support the government making a blanket ban on all lies

In theory, this law, if perfectly applied, would not be incompatible with my view of free speech. In practice, such a law would be too broad, because determining whether something is true or not, and whether someone believes it or not, are hard problems that the justice system can't solve in general.

> It is certainly possible to frame opinions into those various categories.

It's possible to frame an opinion into any action, including straightforward murder. But no opinion requires an action in that group to express.

For the "it would be a shame if X" example, the crime is not the words or opinion. In fact, it's perfectly possible to use those same words legally, to express a genuine opinion that X would be bad! The crime is communicating a threat (which is not an opinion) via implication.

The only action is the speech in some of those instances. For example, I have the opinion that politician X is evil and a threat to the country. I publicly declare this opinion by saying "any person who murders politician X would be a true patriot". I have committed no action beyond speech. My speech was purely an opinion. That is still an incitement to violence as it is an encouragement for others to commit a violent crime.

My understanding is, under the precedent set by Brandenburg v. Ohio, the example you give is considered protected speech. "Anyone who murders politician X this Friday, at 4PM EST when he plans to be at this adress, would be a true patriot" is not protected, however; it goes beyond opinion to actual planning of an imminent illegal act.

That's ridiculous! Hecklers trying to prevent someone from speaking aren't themselves trying to speak, they're trying to prevent other people from hearing that speech.

Is inarticulate yelling legally "speech" though?

That's a genuine question.

Is this a serious question?

Of course that's speech.

If I set up on the street right in front of your house, and started yelling inarticulately 24/7, you would not welcome my "speech" for very long I suspect.

How so?

What? The word "speech" in the legal/rights/democratic context doesn't literally mean vocalizations that create vibrations in the air, only someone engaged in motivated reasoning would interpret it that way. The word "speech" in this context means the communication of ideas through words, which is why things like the written word, art, fliers etc are also considered to be "speech".

As a speaker, you’re free to buy / rent your own private venue and you trespass any hecklers who attempt to threaten your livelihood there by yelling over your speech.

You don’t have a right to force a private university to host your speech and prevent its students from heckling.

The school had written rules against these sorts of disruptions. By permitting this behavior, Stanford is violating their prior written commitments.

They aren't permitting this behavior. But if they were to change their rules to allow these sorts of disruptions, as stupid as that would be, they would have every right to do so and it wouldn't be a violation of anyone's right to free speech or to earn a livelihood.

It would not be a violation of the First Amendment (probably, Stanford is a private university but they do receive federal funds). It would be a violation of the spirit and principle of free expression.

Sure, heckle and hold counter-events. But the current state of university mobs today is literally closer to murderous than insightful.

SFSU let Riley Gaines be beaten and held against her will by the braying mob. New Zealand let Posie Parker and a bunch of old ladies be attacked be assaulted by shrieking thugs. There's nothing of speech in their actions, just terroristic political violence against the enemy.

> you’re free to buy / rent your own private venue

Actually, no you're not. The mob will blockade even an entirely private event held off-campus, or in a public square with permit, etc.

What happened at SFSU (and no doubt in New Zealand as well) was clearly battery, though the authorities are likely to look the other way.

Likewise, blockading a private event is likely a criminal act.

Freedom of speech, as a political right, is fundamentally a right to protest. It's about the ability to speak against those in power without excessive consequences.

When you have some students against a high-level public official, the students' rights are obviously more important from a freedom of speech perspective.

Of course, freedom of speech is not an absolute right, and it's not the only thing that matters. If the university finds it valuable to host controversial speakers, maintaining the order by suppressing the freedom of speech of those who try to disrupt the talk can be a valid choice.

> It's about the ability to speak against those in power without excessive consequences.

"Those in power" is such a nebulous concept. In certain situations (legal cases that come before him), the circuit court judge has a lot of power. In others (Stanford campus environment), the students have more power than he does. Freedom of speech is fundamentally the right to express one's opinion—it is irrelevant whose interests that opinion serves. In the Stanford incident, the hecklers interfered with the judge's ability to express his opinion, while the judge's actions in no way interfered with the ability of the students to communicate their opinions.

First, this would be a far more interesting case for freedom of speech if the speaker was someone from a private think tank. Now it's effectively citizens vs. the government. With high-ranking government officials, it's often impossible to separate the person from the office.

Second, opinions are irrelevant. Everyone has them, and they are almost always worthless. Placing excessive value on opinions is the reason why we are in this endless quagmire of political polarization. The students disrupted the talk instead of arguing with the speaker, because they believed they have the right (rather than just the freedom) to express their opinions.

Freedom of speech is at its core the right to express politically actionable ideas. It protects those who reveal secrets the authorities would keep hidden, those who criticize the way things are done, and those who propose doing things in a different way. It allows citizens to debate matters and to make better, more informed decisions.

The freedom to express opinions is a trivial consequence.

> It protects those who reveal secrets the authorities would keep hidden, those who criticize the way things are done, and those who propose doing things in a different way.

Freedom of speech protects your right to say that the earth is round. The roundness of the earth won't reveal any corruption scandals, it won't lead to major political reforms. It's not political at all. And yet is is just as protected as anything else.

More generally, defining freedom of speech in terms of government is wrong, because freedom of speech fundamentally does not depend on government. It is an inalienable, God-given right, that people have even in a state of nature where no government exists.

The primary purpose of freedom of speech is protecting political participation. The protection for other kinds of speech is a trivial consequence.

As for those supposed inalienable rights, I suggest empirical validation. Go to a country like North Korea and try testing, which rights actually exist.

The only rights that matter are the ones that the society (not necessarily the government) is willing to enforce.

It doesn't matter what society thinks. Free speech is self-evident, as natural as breathing—it needs no philosophical justification. Society may try to deny it, but in doing so they deny what it means to be human

> the students' rights are obviously more important

The students rights aren't being infringed. They can spend all 365 days of the year saying what they want, everywhere they want, except in that one room for two hours.

To imply that they have a right to amplified shrieking over the speaker to state their point, you're doing what you accuse the other side of doing, insisting that free speech is a right to be heard.

The students deserve the same treatment the invited speaker deserves - a guarantee that they can speak and be peacefully heard - somewhere. Universities have many rooms and the students can have their own.

I think it's okay for the students to decide that the speaker's actions make them ineligible to speak at the school and "shriek" over them. People get to decide you're a piece of shit and refuse to let you speak without getting shouted down, because people aren't the government and have no obligation to uphold your 1st amendment rights. And it's the school administration's job to do with that behavior as they will.

Frankly, it's good to see people taking a moral stance against someone who takes a "moral" stance (imposing their holy book on everyone) by doing something like allowing states to ban gay marriage. People on this site talk big about "accountability" for their pet problems like data leaks and privacy but seemingly don't like it when public figures are held even modestly accountable for their shit behavior which does irreparable harm.

> because people aren't the government and have no obligation to uphold your 1st amendment rights

That statement is frightening. I sure hope most people think they are obligated to allow other people their right to free speech.

Oh yes, quite frightening! I don't want to listen to people who peddle bullshit, and I would deny them a platform to do so, gasp in horror!

In situations where people start threatening others with violence to shut them up, concern is warranted. Until then... Let's touch grass together.

Would be interesting to see how long you (a seemingly intolerant person who singlehandedly decides what is bullshit and condones harassment) would tolerate someone following you around and insulting or berating you and/or your family constantly, including your place of work like a speaking engagement at a university. Hopefully, you realize that what you suggest is not feasible.

Well okay, if you think violence isn't significantly occurring then help draw that line anyway.

Even just crowding beyond capacity into a room, or shoving signs in front of speakers, or blocking people's way, would be treated as a crime if it was done to interrupt a stockholder's meeting. Do you think these actions are okay in protests or do you think they should be stopped?

How close, how many, and how loud, would the people be allowed to be? Are they allowed to shove into every elevator with you to deny you any potential "platform" to talk, or are they limited to only disrupting sanctioned meetings? Can they follow you home at night, or to the movies?

Can they simply scream incoherently, or are they limited to actually speaking words to be treated as protestors? Are amplified sirens allowed, and when?

Given that masked protestors have and frequently do attack people at rallies, and threats are easily implied from masked people screaming at you, would you be fine asking police to follow the usual (pre 2010) rules on masking at political events and either unmask people or make them leave?

And lastly, are these rules that you think are reasonable and should apply in both directions, regardless of which side protests what?

Apparently the student mass-emailed a flyer on letterhead meant to impersonate the Federalist Society. [1] They complained not because they were being mocked but because the fake email looked enough like their emails and could have damaged their reputations. Based on the reporting, I don't think they had any intention that their classmate's diploma be put on hold temporarily, just that there be an investigation into his conduct impersonating them.

1: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/email-mocking-stanford-...

As with Musk, the loudest claimants to the throne of “free speech absolutist” tend to have some… quirky exceptions.

This only strengthens the free speech argument. People are naturally inconsistent on issues and most issues are nuanced, so it is important to give space for discussion that goes beyond the boundaries we set for ourselves.

Do the Federalist Society claim to be free speech absolutists? Actual free speech advocates like FIRE immediately came to the student's defense.

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