Taking a stand: Facebook, TechCrunch, and Free Speech | Hacker News Reader

Taking a stand: Facebook, TechCrunch, and Free Speech

danieltenner.com

17 pointsswombat27 comments

Sorry to be so negative but this is a simply terrible article. It's a remedial lesson in free speech (and not a particularly articulate or entertaining one at that) with the current context of social media added.

Anyone who cares about constitutional rights already will know more than this article can offer.

I quite agree.

This is a very poor discussion of the ideas and concepts at hand. Its not even an 'introductory' level discussion; most of it is just plain uninformed.

Personally, my first reading has led me to find the conclusions quite distasteful. I'm not sure a common carrier like Facebook should go taking sides, as the author seems to be suggesting. I consider there to be a significant difference between institutions (i.e. Facebook) taking sides and people (i.e. a host of a party).

The internet, with a little searching, can supply far better arguments about free speech than this.

I'm sorry that you feel that way. To be fair, I was not making any point about constitutional free speech, but rather, making a point about Facebook's involuntary editorial stand when they refuse to moderate hate groups on their system.

It's also worth pointing out that many people do care about this discussion without being experts on constitutional rights (I guess I'm one of them, since I'm not american, so your constitution has little impact on me).

Don't get me wrong, I find hateful speech to be highly distasteful, but the arguments in the article are flawed. They suppose that groups who practice hate speech must by definition also be unwilling to allow dissenting viewpoints the right to speak. While there may be correlation, saying that hate speech is anti-free speech is a stretch.

It is also worth pointing out that simply disagreeing with certain viewpoints and facts =/= hate speech in and of itself. Hate is defined by emotion and intent, not agreement or disagreement on any particular point (Unless that point is directly relevant to hateful behavior).

These were my thoughts exactly. There's nothing incongruous about saying "I think Jews are dirty and evil but I respect your right to believe otherwise." He implies that hate speech infringes on the free speech of others in some way, which is a leap I don't feel is backed up.

I find his living room analogy to be not only a poor fit, but a dangerous idea. "Would we, for the sake of free speech, allow this person to remain in our living room?" Replace "living room" with "country" and you've got a common anti-dissent argument.

Not only that, but the whole living room analogy is unillumating. Whose living room is Facebook? Mine? The Nazis'? The founders'?

The real issue is this: we have traded many of our public spaces for commercial spaces, and then we are surprised to find that we can't do whatever we want in them. For example, you cannot hold a political protest in a mall (or, as in the well-known case, even wear a political t-shirt in a mall). Your mall might act like the town square used to be in your town; but it is a completely different beast legally.

The reality is that online speech, where that happens on commercial/private entities like Facebook or Twitter or whatever is not like speech in your town square. Facebook is a private entity and they have the right to allow or not allow whatever they feel like on their systems. If they want to ban breastfeeding pics and allow skinhead pics, that is their business.

There's no point pretending that they owe you something just because you use their site. The first amendment and similar protections where they exist in other countries protect you from the government. They don't have anything to say about commercial Internet entities.

[Edit following TrevorJ's comments below: To be fair, the law is starting to struggle with some of these issues, see for example some suggestions raised here:

http://www.murdoch.edu.au/elaw/issues/v7n3/sichok73.html

In this context I am pretty sure that constitutionally, Facebook is no different than a mall - if we could resolve the issues of free v. commercial and controlled speech in malls, sponsored public events etc., I am sure that Internet-based activities would be fall into that quite neatly]

This is a really good point, I had not thought of that argument. Very very true. Facebook is NOT the public square.

I disagree on a number of points. I understand that it's a difficult subject, but to just point out one example:

"The third important point is that not all speech is equal. Some speech has direct, negative consequences. Few would argue that a person who yells “Fire!” in a crowded theatre, and causes a stampede that results in 5 deaths and 25 injuries, should not be prosecuted. As an even more immediate example, the words “Shoot him”, spoken to someone who holds a gun to your head, are obviously not good speech."

Free speech, as I have understood it, is about communicating ideas. These are not ideas - these are a different creature altogether. Both are communicated via words, but they are not the same.

The issue with facebook is that people are voicing ideas - the holocaust never happened (I assume from the referenced article, I haven't cared enough about this stuff to go to the source material), etc. That should not be curtailed. That should not be limited. (Apparently) Hateful, and (to me) simply stupid ideas should be discussed and discarded. In this case it's a simple argument to make - denying the holocaust makes little to no sense whatsoever given the evidence.

When someone says, "Kill the jews", then absolutely yes, an issue outside of free speech has been raised. They are no longer communicating ideas, they are advocating dangerous activities.

The line for some (especially those with more emotional involvement) may be thin between the two, but it's still crucial to differentiate between them. For one, the cure is relentlessly open and frank discussion, and for the other a more mundane policing.

When someone says, "Kill the jews", then absolutely yes, an issue outside of free speech has been raised. They are no longer communicating ideas, they are advocating dangerous activities.

For the record, if you click on the first link (http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/06/15/facebook-employees-spea...) and scroll down a bit, you'll see some extracts of the offending comments. One of them by one "Luke Andrews" from Wales, reads:

"die jews die"

This is an example of something that Facebook is refusing to act on.

Well, that's simply stupid. But Arrington specifically holds up examples of

"Ezra Callahan on being a Jewish employee and supporting Facebook’s policy to not remove groups that deny the Holocaust."

Which is not. He implies (well, even plainly says) that all of it must go. That's wrong headed - sweeping ignorance and hatred under the carpet won't solve anything.

For what it's worth, I'm completely baffled by sentiments like "die jews die". I can't understand for the life of me why anyone would be so upset at something as abstract as a race of people.

A brilliant response to the idiocy is always comedy:

"Throw the jew down the well" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vb3IMTJjzfo

(If you don't know, this is Sacha Baron Cohen (Jewish), playing 'Borat')

Is the line, then, just between commands and non-commands? Are "all the Jews should be killed" or "Jews cannot be alive" significantly different from "Kill the Jews"?

I suppose, since I haven't studied law as much as I should have, that there is an already established set of guidelines. If I were coming up with an admittedly vague rule-of-thumb off the top of my head, I think the line would be speech advocating or intended to likely lead to the immediate harm of any individual or group would not fall under protected speech.

And, looking it up on wikipedia, it seems that there is indeed already a set of guidelines. John Stuart Mill introduced "the harm principle":

"John Stuart Mill argued that "...there ought to exist the fullest liberty of professing and discussing, as a matter of ethical conviction, any doctrine, however immoral it may be considered."...However, Mill also introduced what is known as the harm principle, in placing the following limitation on free expression: "the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others."

Makes sense to me, and should be used as the guiding principle. As swombat pointed out below, there are cases where the replies were simply advocating hard to a group of people. That's easy enough to take off. Holocaust denial isn't so clear.

Here's a nice rundown of US law on free speech: http://www.firstamendmentcenter.org/analysis.aspx?id=21677

"...Ohio law punished mere advocacy and failed to distinguish between abstract advocacy and true incitement to imminent lawless action."

There's interesting points to be made regarding government regulation of free speech vs. market actors, but this article makes none of them. There are important questions about who can make judgments about what speech is worthy of protection and what speech is not, and the article addresses none of them.

If I were a high school civics teacher, I'd give it a C for at least being aware what the keywords to mention are, but no higher because it displays no understanding of the issues.

Would you care to share those points with us?

When laws punish speech after the fact, those laws might be wrong, but they are laws, not censorship.

Not according to First Amendment jurisprudence, which generally views such laws as unconstitutional under the 'chilling effect' doctrine.

I completely agree with your sentiment, but I think the issue is different - what class of speech is protected? Speech, once protected, cannot be censored nor punished after the fact. Unprotected speech can be both censored and punished.

From what I've read the crux of the issue is that there:

- Are laws in the US regulating "adult" content

- Are not laws in the US regulating holocaust denial

As such Facebook is required to police adult content, whereas they'd risk losing their status as a host (and become a publisher) if they were to apply editorial scrutiny, making them, among other things, liable for copyright violations, libel and whatnot on their platform.

This is probably the strongest argument I've read so far against Facebook moderating hate groups.

It's worth pointing out, though, that this is not the argument Facebook is making. They are refusing to moderate hate groups on ideological grounds, not on legal grounds.

Good point, though.

Well, but you're not going to see a company saying, "We don't want to do X because if we do X we'll be responsible for the illegal stuff on our servers." – they're not going to admit there's illegal stuff on their servers.

"hate speech directly attacks free speech"

No, it doesn't, but it might attack the aims of granting free speech. It may make people feel less free, or less safe, but it doesn't take away their ability to have their own say.

I think anybody should be allowed to say anything, and then people can resolve problems on their own. Rational people limit what they say based upon the environment. If someone asked me about my sexual identity in Alabama, I'd be unlikely come right out and say I am queer.

A much more convicing argument for Tenner's point of view is:

Hate speech should be illegal because it impairs others' freedom. If a group of workers in a male-dominated environment put up porn on the walls of the changing rooms, it may make the few women feel uncomfortable.

In the case of the living room with the person spouting racist remarks, there is a distinction between public and private places. In public: anything goes. (There, it might be useful to incorporate sgrove's idea of ideas vs just words.) In private, people have a right to control their own environment.

There are some pretty convincing arguments that directly repudiate the points in this article in a book called Defending the Undefendable by Walter Block. For example, there's a chapter called "The Person Who Yells Fire in a Crowded Theatre" and one called "The Slanderer or Libeler."

You can get it free from Mises here: http://mises.org/books/defending.pdf

Why isn't anyone balking at the idea of establishing an official version of history which must not be disputed? This is an even more specific and Orwellian threat than censorship in general, and we're going there because of a handful of racist idiots who apparently don't even have convincing arguments?

Who decides what hate speech is?

That is the other danger zone. It seems that more and more this is determined by how the speech makes somebody else feel, but what is to stop me from going to court and saying that Microsoft new ad campaign makes me feel hated for being a Linux user? It's so subjective.

someone just asked Michael Arrington (see the comments):

Jeff: Hey Michael! You are Jew right ? Michael: I am a human being.

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