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Comment by gred | Hacker News Reader

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Like any freedom in an interconnected society, freedom of speech and expression is not absolute, but limited when it infringes on other rights: right not to be insulted or discriminated against.

It's really a rather simple concept entirely void of cencorship.

In case of more interest, Kant is a good source for educating oneself:

> Kant holds in contrast that there is no innate right to unlimited freedom but only an innate right to freedom “insofar as it can coexist with the freedom of every other in accordance with universal law” (6:237).

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/kant-social-political/

The "right to not be insulted" is literally censorship.

I do think this is the wrong way to look at this.

Prohibiting slurs is like prohibiting nudity in public parks. You're prohibiting an action so that people don't self-prohibit themselves from visiting.

It starts with words. Then come books, movies, comedy. ”right not to be insulted”… feeling insulted is an emotion. Learn to deal with your emotions.

Yeah, I know… everybody is a winner and what not.

Slippery slope applies to everything.

First they banned murder, then it was punching, next it was looking.

The problem with slippery slope arguments is that you need a slope.

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The thing you're missing is that it's really a "you" problem. Most people don't go on the internet to read slurs just like they don't go to public parks to look at penises. You want to post slurs and so you want to remove the rules against it. The result is just going to be people not visiting 4chan.

Your slippery slope looks more like a slippery uphill.

If you look up the definition of censorship, you'll find that it is not.

Censorship is suppression.

Insulting someone or discriminating against them is not supression, it's unlawful.

If that's not your cup of tea, I'd challenge you to forego any and all (!) ameneties of modern civilized society to enjoy your anarcho-freedom.

Don't pretend to be a tough one by sitting in a comfy chair and picking the raisins out of the dough.

Well once you bring law into it then you have to be accurate. Insulting someone is almost never unlawful in the US. And discrimination laws apply to specific matters for specific special classes.

> Insulting someone or discriminating against them is not supression, it's unlawful.

It is not, at all, unlawful to insult someone. Your argument is absurd.

You seem to be very confused. Even in countries like the UK with weaker freedom-of-speech laws, there are specific exceptions to slander law for insults.

"you can call people mentally ill but only if they're targets of the regime" isn't exactly in line with the principles of free speech in the first place.

"The right to not be insulted" is not a right at all. if you don't like what the other person is saying, your recourse is to leave, not to imprison the other person, or some derivative thereof.

What is this “right to not be insulted”?

I insult you. What now?

So when are we locking up everyone that's insulted Trump?

You know full well that Trump is a public figure. Where I live, different protections of personal rights exist for private people, such as typically engaged on social media and public figures.

Neither is or ever was charging anyone who writes an insult online a proposed or practiced option but simply deleting derogatory comments.

Your notion of “private people” is entirety arbitrary and is an obvious loophole for abusing the system by depriving some of their rights.

And yet, it carries legal meaning in the US, thanks to NY Times v. Sullivan and Gertz v. Robert Welch Inc.

This is not GP's "notion" this is an actual thing under US law that the US Supreme Court created back in the 1960's. As with all rights, it depends on the country, but in the US Public Figure Doctrine (and the concept of a Limited Purpose Public Figure) are both real things, with a court deciding if Public Figure Doctrine applies to a given case or not.

Kant must have been a hell of a philosopher that he could not only predict the laws of the US two centuries after his death, but also use them as a basis for his philosophy.

(un)fortunately Kant is not one of the Founding Fathers :)

There's a whole world outside of the USA.

Way to display your pride of your own ignorance, bud.

heavy coming from someone who wrote freedom of speech and expression is not absolute, but limited when it infringes on other rights: right not to be insulted or discriminated against with the straight face.

your words have insulted me so imma hit up HN to have it be deleted and maybe file a lawsuit as well :)

Ridicule my words all you want, we both know full well that there are legal definitions of slander and that I did not mean censoring anything but legally valid infringements.

That's what a (functioning) court system is there for.

What's heavy is blowing up a nothingburger in so many words. :D

Good luck with your lawsuit!

Ok so if a court system is what matters why do you support abusive censorship from private platforms that go well beyond what the law typically requires.

Their platform. As long as they are transparent on what they are doing, they should be free to do this. You are also free to not use it.

Being deceptive is more questionable than doing your own censorship on your own platform.

Removing things you don't like without justification while claiming your platform is freedom-land would be much more problematic. Same with shady algorithm favouring specific content without transparency.

And yet the twitter files shows an interesting case, what you posit as the platform executing their own will (their platform), was in fact heavily influenced by government threats of removal of section 230 protections. Platforms should be free from undemocratic, top down influence from our highest officials, surely you would agree?

That would skew platforms far to the right from their current (2020-2024) political leanings though.

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

have you actually read the twitter files? doubt that you did and also wrote this comment. you can also just read the above-the-fold part of the link you provided ... :)

Here is a better link, woth direct quotes of the source material, that back up my claim. An editorialized wikipedia article written by people who do not want the story to be true was not a good choice on my part. My apologies. I'd also suggest listening to Mark Zuckerberg's appearance on JRE if you want to get info from the horse's mouth so to speak.

[1] https://twitterfiles.substack.com/p/1-thread-the-twitter-fil...

Mark Zuckerberg made big claims but unfortunately he didn't provide proof, no trails of relevant threats. He blamed left for his own communication during covid but at that time Trump was at the Whitehouse. That sudden change from Zuckerberg may not be entirely motivated by genuine freedom of speech support.

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