You don't. That's why the cancel culture is ridiculous and needs to end.
https://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/local/sdge-worker-fired-ove...
For example, if someone feels me up, should I be allowed to post on Facebook detailing the encounter? Am I allowed to name them? Can I tag their employers?
If I read about someone claiming that they've been felt up, can I forward it to my friends? Can I notify my employer if they're working at the same company as me?
Essentially, can you determine a line where my freedom to speak ends?
Why should I avoid talking about something because it pertains to a criminal proceeding? If I get sexually assaulted, should I avoid reaching out to anyone for support? If a person cheated me out of money during a business transaction, should I avoid calling them out on it? If someone punches me, and the police decide not to press charges, do I avoid warning anyone?
No, it's not, and saying it is is trivializing lynching. Which, given the political alignment of the people usually arguing the loudest against cancel culture, is unsurprising.
If I retweet a message that says "X assaulted Y" and X ends up fired later, have I participated in a lynching?
As of now, we're so afraid of stopping people from coming forward that we've allowed those with evil intentions to weaponize our empathy.
False speech isn't protected. Also, the parent comment made no claim that the statements made were true or false, just that there were accusation. I don't think that "people shouldn't knowingly lie" is a particularly hard stance on free speech.
It is to the extent that it isn't prosecuted as a matter of policy.
> Also, the parent comment made no claim that the statements made were true or false, just that there were accusation
And I'm saying "No, I think we ought to appropriately punish people who do make false claims" in response to the original question Would you like to judge how limited my speech should be?
> And I'm saying "No, I think we ought to appropriately punish people who do make false claims" in response to the original question "Would you like to judge how limited my speech should be?"
Okay, but then you aren't disagreeing with me; just posting a tangential point. In the example posted:
> If an unknown woman issues a public twitter statement that she's been abused, is it OK to get the alleged offender cancelled before a court trial?
There's no indication that the claims are false, and if they are false, that the people making the claims aren't punished. All it asks is "is it okay to share information about an accusation, even if you aren't certain it's true?"
I wasn't trying to disagree with you. I just think the issue is oversimplified into forum sized bites and needs to be approached holistically.
> If you want to have a separate conversation on whether false speech is prosecuted in the United States, we can do that. But this isn't really relevant to the discussion at hand, which is how is "cancel culture" at odds with "free speech."
False speech being 'protected' in the sense that it doesn't result in any harm to person committing the act is, in my opinion, extremely relevant. Free speech isn't free if those who would cause you harm are free to do so at the slightest provocation, and without fear of punishment.
> All it asks is "is it okay to share information about an accusation, even if you aren't certain it's true?"
My answer is "Yes, if you're willing to accept an appropriate punishment for libel/slander/defamation in the event you were wrong." One added thought though, what if the person accused can no longer afford a decent lawyer because they got canceled? That could result in catastrophic harm to an innocent person, just like the [0]4% of death row inmates that are supposedly innocent.
It seems like what you're going for is that freedom of speech requires responsibility for consequences of speech, which I'm all for. I'm more worried about understanding how far those consequences stretch; if you share an article about race statistics that prompts a riot, are you responsible?
> My answer is "Yes, if you're willing to accept an appropriate punishment for libel/slander/defamation in the event you were wrong."
Do you believe that if someone unknowingly published something that turns out to be false, they should be held legally liable for it? For example, if I share a news article that turns out to be false, I should bear liability?
> One added thought though, what if the person accused can no longer afford a decent lawyer because they got canceled? That could result in catastrophic harm to an innocent person, just like the [0]4% of death row inmates that are supposedly innocent.
That would be a causality of free speech. At some point, some group of people are going to be hurt by speech or lack thereof, and it's more a matter of deciding what tradeoffs we'll make.
Entirely depends on if the statistics and any stated conclusions are true, and to what extent the article actually prompted the riot vs other factors.
> Do you believe that if someone unknowingly published something that turns out to be false, they should be held legally liable for it? For example, if I share a news article that turns out to be false, I should bear liability?
If you unknowingly repeat that someone is a pedophile just because it seems popular, it seems reasonable that you share some portion of the blame for whatever harm befalls that person.
In the news article example it is the publication and/or the author that is responsible. Of course this gets into a grey area regarding the content of the article and whether it's possible to know the content is false or defamatory.
> At some point, some group of people are going to be hurt by speech or lack thereof, and it's more a matter of deciding what tradeoffs we'll make.
In my (based on the downvotes I'm receiving) unpopular opinion, I don't think we should give up any speech whatsoever under any circumstances. If people say evil things that cause harm (go kill this person, this person is a nazi, let's get this guy fired, etc), go after them for the harm.
You'll need to define what an "evil thing" is. For example, in the race statistic example, you make it clear that depending on exactly what was said, you may or may not be responsible for the harm.
You'll also need to define "cause." In cancel culture, no one "forces" companies to fire people, they just put companies under economic pressure, much like boycotting.
I think the key issue is what you mentioned earlier:
> whether it's possible to know the content is false
Where there's some threshold of belief whether something is true or not; for example, it might be fair game to share a New York Times article, knowing that they're generally true. But someone on Twitter?
Also thanks for talking in good faith, it's refreshing to talk to someone who genuinely engages in discussion as opposed to trying to win.
If someone says something false with the intent of harming someone (getting them fired, ostracized in their community, harming their personal relationships, etc) I would say that's a reasonable definition of evil.
A good example is when some people try to call Joe Rogan, a liberal comedian who liked Bernie for president, a Nazi or alt-right. It's clearly untrue and it's intended to de-platform him because they don't like the politics or message of some of his guests.
> You'll also need to define "cause."
I look at this from a rather extreme perspective. If I put a gun to someone's head and tell them to do something, it's coerced. I didn't 'make them' do the thing. They did it willingly to avoid harm.
The same is true when a horde of people call someone's boss and say 'X is a Nazi so either fire him or we'll organize a boycott and you'll go out of business'
> Where there's some threshold of belief whether something is true or not
This is the hardest part to sort out. Hitting like or retweet on something isn't the same as publishing an article yourself. That said, intentionally signal boosting 'X is a nazi' or similar does cause harm. I think this requires a case-by-case review.
> Also thanks for talking in good faith, it's refreshing to talk to someone who genuinely engages in discussion as opposed to trying to win.
Likewise! Although it does seem that public opinion doesn't like my point of view much, I'm glad there's still folks willing try working through a topic together rather than jumping into a jousting match.
What I'm really afraid of is reaching an audience of hundreds of millions, and having them potentially inadvertently take my words out of context. Doxing is a hard problem to solve, but I'd really prefer a SWAT team not show up at my door. Statistically, you're much more likely to reach those few bad apples with an internet-sized megaphone.
I think disagreements are fantastic to work through and how we better ourselves, but some people react pretty horribly to them.
It is though, it's just that we as a society define which consequences you are free from as the speaker (ex. some legal consequences). The internet, and social media in particular, has profoundly changed how we think about the topic. In my opinion we'd be better off as a whole if we reevaluated our perspectives when presented with new information rather than avoiding discourse entirely in favour of dogma.
>and then not "punish" you for it? If you tell your wife she looks fat, she's probably not having sex with you that evening
This isn't a punitive action, it's a personal choice of your wife. AFAIK you are not entitled to sex with your wife whenever you so choose. A scenario in which a contract is terminated based on something said on social media (when there's no clause in the contract covering that particular thing) is fundamentally different, for example.
No one is forcing you to listen to anything. I'm sure you've never been forced to read r/TheDonald, or watch Alex Jones talk. If any friends on social media links you to a paper on psychological differences between the sexes being rooted in biology, you are free to ignore the link or block them all-together. If a coworker or employee starts talking about immigration restriction in a way that sounds vaguely xenophobic, you're free to ask them to keep that kind of political talk out of the workplace.
This is about the freedom that the rest of us have to choose to listen to others' speech, and to be free to engage with it and come to our own conclusion about it.
> If you tell your wife she looks fat, she's probably not having sex with you that evening. If you call someone a racial slur, they're probably both going to tell everyone they know about what you said, and refuse to interact with you unless forced to.
Those are not relevant examples.
That's not true, it doesn't even really make sense. Freedom of anything is freedom from consequences for it. If I say I believe in freedom to have an abortion, noone would reasonably be said to agree if they said they also believe in freedom to have an abortion, and then immediate execution by the state afterwards.
Freedom of speech in the constitution is freedom from reprisal by the government
Freedom of speech as used idiomatically in speech generally means a certain level of freedom of reprisals from employers and society.
Directed racial slurs is a straw man, almost noone believes in absolutist freedom of speech when it comes to directed harrassment, they normally believe in freedom to discuss topics in the abstract.
It's not a monarchy if someone has the freedom to speak, that doesn't make them a king just a citizen.
I've noticed a trend with the woke side of the debate to get into like high-school level semantics - redefining words or misinterpreting statements in a nakedly disingenuous way - does anyone understand why this seems to be a trend?
"a certain level" implies the existence of an acceptable level of consequence, unless by that you mean "absolute." If so, why not simply state that?
>Directed racial slurs is a straw man, almost noone believes in absolutist freedom of speech when it comes to directed harrassment, they normally believe in freedom to discuss topics in the abstract.
You're just moving the goalposts around the definition of "speech" so that it conveniently doesn't include the contradictions to your premise. Racial slurs and directed harassment are obviously speech. If you believe there should be consequences for that, then you believe freedom of speech does not mean freedom from consequences.
Where most people who say they support free speech are, is this statement: "support free speech without reprisals, excluding directed harrassment, with some level of acceptable reprisals in employment and socially, depending on the context, but at a much lower level than is currently the case, with less arbitrary application of mob justice and employer discrimination"
It's not catchy but nor is it inherently contradictory. It's what I imagine JK Rowling, Chomsky et al would say if you spoke to them about their letter.
I really think it would be useful if the anti-free-speech side of the debate stopped with this semantics and straw men about freedom from reprisals, monarchies, directed racism. I think that a person should be free to discuss eg. spaces for trans vs non-trans women and where to draw the line on sports etc, to what level the BLM is a useful movement, the relative weight of cultural vs economic vs discrimination in explaining different outcomes across ethicities and genders, positive discrimination, without being fired, cancelled or becoming unemployable. That's what most free speech people think, and all these semantic points, false definitions and straw men are kind of a waste of time
Your own counterclaim, however, that "freedom from anything means freedom from the consequences of that thing" does not even allow for the reasonable, non-arbitrary consequences you're supporting, here.
You, I and tw04 are actually in violent agreement, but it seems your politics doesn't allow you to concede the possibility that the "other side" can hold a reasonable opinion.
For a lot of us here, the phrase "free speech doesn't mean freedom from consequences" comes across (not unreasonably) as support for firing trump supporters or people who question system racism (etc.) which is both unjust and foolish for a number of reasons.
We also need to consider whether it is just to fire someone for something offensive (but not illegal) they did offline that was surreptitiously recorded and uploaded to the Internet to feed mob outrage.
I actually would agree with that, but I disagree that any consequence is always excessive.
>For a lot of us here, the phrase "free speech doesn't mean freedom from consequences" comes across (not unreasonably) as support for firing trump supporters or people who question system racism (etc.) which is both unjust and foolish for a number of reasons.
I think it is unreasonable, or at least uncharitable, to assume the most extreme interpretation possible of a phrase simply because you disagree with the politics of the people using it.
That's exactly the sort of thing "a lot of us here" accuse progressives or "the left" of doing to them.
Fair enough.
> I think it is unreasonable, or at least uncharitable, to assume the most extreme interpretation possible of a phrase simply because you disagree with the politics of the people using it.
I disagree that it was unreasonable or extreme. "Free speech doesn't mean freedom of consequences" is mutually exclusive of the statement "free speech does mean freedom from at least some consequences". You cannot logically support both statements.
It's also the slogan that is very commonly used to justify these cancellations. I think it's worth point out that the initial comment by wGeF7H8Z59y985y (not zimablue) was clearly framing things in the context of people losing their jobs over their political opinions.
I mean, that's literally what not voting for someone is - choosing to not hire them. But that's semantics.
I'm not sure how you draw the lines on all this - if someone is spending all day tell their Jewish co-worker they need to stop the "international bankers", is that OK? Is speaking hatefully in the abstract about a group of people acceptable?
If you attack a person or a race by accusing them of misbehaviors, that doesn't mean it's wrong to oppese misbehaviors!
The lines will always be a little blurred, but international bankers isn’t a synonym for Jews, it might be a dog whistle but it would only be a problem for me if they know the colleague is Jewish and do this day in day out after being asked to stop.
I think so much of this discussion is wasted, and we’d be more productive just to pick a few examples and argue on them about whether we shift the line.
Eg. For me Damore shouldn’t have been fired and that’s when I realized that the woke thing wasn’t a right wing straw man, it really was running big Corp America
Yes, it does, actually. That is, in fact, the definition of freedom of speech.
What you're talking about isn't freedom of speech, it's freedom FROM responsibility. I don't think you're going to find very many people that want to sign up for: HNThrowaway262 can do whatever he wants and you just have to take it. That's a dictatorship or a monarchy, you might want to live in that society but I don't.
Your words and actions have consequences and SHOULD.