> Likewise screaming Fire! in a crowded space is not allowed as free speech.

Can we please stop using this worn-out excuse for censorship as if it were some deep insight? It was indefensible back when it was first invented to justify prosecuting people for protesting the draft. It's just plain sad that people still parrot it to this day.

First, even the people that invented it for reasons of political expediency didn't take it that far. You can scream "Fire!" if there is an actual fire.

Putting that aside, even if there isn't an actual fire, no one dies because you scream "Fire!". They die because people panic and trample them in their haste to escape. That isn't a matter of speech. The responsibility for that harm is on the people that panicked—just as it would be if the fire were real. The appropriate response to a call of "Fire!" in a crowded space is to make a rapid but safe and orderly escape without trampling anyone, whether the fire is real, feigned, or an innocent false alarm.

Please don't defend harming other people.

Of course you can scream fire if there is one, but the point is that making up a lie and intentionally introducing it into the public square harms others.

At no point did I defend harming other people. Which, really, is the entire point. Lying is not acceptable behavior and people really aren't going to like you very much if you do it—which may well have social consequences—but on its own it doesn't justify capital punishment, imprisonment, fines, or any other form of legal retribution. No one suffers bodily injury or property damage as a direct result of mere speech, and in the specific case of the "falsely yelling fire in a crowded theater" canard it is perfectly obvious that it is not the report of fire (false or otherwise) that caused the harm but rather the other theatergoers who panicked and placed their own safety first, ignoring the very real harm they were inflicting on the other patrons in their haste to escape.

Sophistry. Like the bully saying "Why are you hitting yourself?!"

Ordinary coherent conversation is one thing. Inciting a riot etc is clearly a different thing. Because both begin with words is irrelevant.

"Inciting a riot" is no different from any other kind of speech. We're not talking about mind-control here, overriding the listeners' will. You speak and other people decide how they will react. They remain responsible for their own actions, just as you are responsible for yours. The difference is that your actions were limited to mere speech, which does not justify any kind of forceful response, whereas theirs involved assault, theft, destruction of property, etc.

That's clearly ignoring human nature, which includes crowd effects that are well-documented and unrelated to 'the listeners' will' or 'deciding how they will react'. Best to read up on this, before saying silly things.

I don't think it's as simple as that. Since people are not literally screaming fire in a theatre who defines what is analogous? We used to be able to practice political descent freely. In times passed it was quite ok to have and share openly an opinion that medication is a scam (this is certainly not a new idea).

It is broadly understood it's not ok to incite violence, but much of what is being labelled as damaging speech is only labelled as such because of the broad platform it's being spoken from.

I agree - and this is the point of limited harms. If I set a fire in my neighbors house "for fun" I will go to prison for a long long time - because of the gigantic potential harm. If my bonfire burns my neighbors fence I am likely to face a shouting match and a bill. In a private forum a malicious lie is likely to create social opprobrium, on the internet it can precipitate the death of children.