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Comment by benihana | Hacker News Reader

> These persons life aren't at risk because they can't express opinions, isn't that what is meant by FoS ?

No. That's the exact opposite of free speech. Free speech is meant to protect the most disgusting, heinous, pointless, hateful, ignorant, foolish speech.

That's the whole freaking point - nobody wants to silence unoffensive opinions.

>ps: I'll add that I was somehow afraid to express my views on Freedom of Speech. Funny.

It is funny. Because it's the people who want silence others' free speech who repeat the "freedom of speech doesn't mean freedom from consequences" meme as justification for their horrible actions.

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> Free speech is meant to protect the most disgusting, heinous, pointless, hateful, ignorant, foolish speech.

No it's not. It's meant to protect speech which the politically powerful find objectionable. It's not about protecting abuse, but protecting ideas. Rebellious and revolutionary ideas, for example.

This is all a canard anyway - Reddit is not the (US) government. They get to set the rules for communication in their playground. If you don't let them do that, then you are infringing on their freedom of expression. Reddit can only say 'no' on their own systems; they don't stop you spreading whatever disgusting, heinous, pointless, hateful, ignorant, or foolish speech in other forums.

If you want free speech the way you describe it, then you need to go to an unmoderated forum. Incidentally, on the front page of HN at the moment is a request for help in removing child porn from a web service, because the owner doesn't have enough resources to moderate it. If you ever wanted a clear example of where free speech is not meant to protect disgusting material, that's got to be it

I wished the ideal of free speech would include the ideal of being open to discussion (perhaps even the scientific method). I think many movements fail in that regard, for example it was pretty much impossible to have reasonable discussions with FPH subscribers. You were immediately downvoted when you tried to argue against it. If people are completely ignorant towards alternative, consistent points of view, they don't deserve to be listened to.

Forcing people to listen, act in certain ways or to follow specific practices is basically the opposite of freedom.

Saying that people should be open to your arguments privileges those ideas you yourself hold. How do you tell which arguments get such treatment?

It wouldn't be the opposite of freedom (that would be suppression), but definitely a limit to the freedom we currently have in certain regards. However, we already have formal and informal rules that restrict the actions of people and forces them to follow specific practices, so it wouldn't be entirely new. In fact it would probably improve the situations at both extremes: on the one hand some taboos would be revoked (as that's also a way to avoid discussion), and you could exclude crazy and confused people who don't partake in any actual discourse.

I didn't say at all people should be open to my particular arguments, but to arguments in general.

> I didn't say at all people should be open to my particular arguments, but to arguments in general.

If it's arguments in general,

* you can't hang up on salesmen,

* you can't kick 911 conspirators off your unrelated forum,

* you can't remove most trolls,

* you can't ban homeopathy threads from /r/science,

* etc.

In general, you lose the ability to moderate conversations in spaces you own, or decide what you spend your time doing. This is, to be honest, a pretty extreme idea if taken literally.

Or you could deem salesmen, 911 conspirators, trolls and homeopathy proponents as "crazy and confused", but who decides that? How is that any more unwanted than posting critical meta commentary to /r/fatpeoplehate?

You are confusing an implication for an equivalence. I've said that those who are not open to arguments should not have a voice. From that it doesn't follow that those who argue should always be listened to.

I imagine a concrete implementation of this idea as a meme that people themselves would recognize this as a good rule and that they would consider it as a decision aid whether or not to participate in a certain group.

You're effectively just juggling the same argument. If I'm to hang up on salesmen, then I'm not open to arguments. Thus you claim I should not have a voice.

Oh, you mean it that way. Anyway, I’ve already said that it should rather applied to large movements instead of interactions of individuals. The current ideal of free speech can’t possibly realized to its fullest extent either/anyway.

It's really not uncommon for hateful children to have thin skin.

>It's meant to protect speech which the politically powerful find objectionable. It's not about protecting abuse, but protecting ideas.

The loophole, then, is to define ideas the politically powerful find objectionable as abuse.

I think the point is that protecting abuse is a necessary but unwanted side-effect, not that it shouldn't be protected. This matters because it helps distinguish when such freedoms need to be applied (eg. in government, not my back yard) and how it should be applied.

It's interesting to me how many reddit free speech defenders say stuff like "Free speech is meant to protect the most disgusting, heinous, pointless, hateful, ignorant, foolish speech."

While I agree that pointless, hateful etc. speech deserves protection one word I almost never see in the reddit free speech wars is *dissent. As in "free speech is meant to protect speech that opposes or challenges orthodox opinion and conventional wisdom."

It's almost like the most vocal part of reddit gets off on being offensive for its own sake and is more concerned about the right to call fat people names rather than defending free speech generally. It does seems like they are flying the free speech flag purely out of narrow self-interest.

How many of them actually give a crap about free speech outside of their "community"? How many of them regularly downvote opinions they don't agree with, I wonder?

> It is funny. Because it's the people who want silence others' free speech who repeat the "freedom of speech doesn't mean freedom from consequences" meme as justification for their horrible actions.

Ugh. "horrible actions" as a description for calling people out who threaten, belittle, insult and harass other people and claim that is "protected speech".

By the way, even in a context, where the term "freedom of speech" is really adequate (so, when talking laws and government actions, for example), freedom stops where you infringe the rights of others. That's the whole point of states: To balance the natural freedoms of one person with the rights of other people, thus providing stability. Which is why you can't steal, for example. That's a freedom that had to be balanced against the rights of other people.

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