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A comment on UK ditches ban on 'legal but harmful' online content in favour of free speech. Parent comment

Re:UK ditches ban on 'legal but harmful' online content in f... by NaturalPhallacy on Tuesday November 29, 2022 @04:50PM (#33793852)
>Freedom of speech isn't freedom from consequence.

Speech with consequences isn't free speech, by definition.

>Freedom of speech is a principle that supports the freedom of an individual or a community to articulate their opinions and ideas without fear of retaliation, censorship, or legal sanction.

Consequences are a "retaliation": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_speech

Alarmingly, a lot of online dictionaries - at least in English - seem to define the 2,400 year old concept of free speech as the American First amendment. Can anyone who speaks another language see if this misconception has spread to other languages?

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Re:UK ditches ban on 'legal but harmful' online content in f... by ben_w on Wednesday November 30, 2022 @12:07PM (#33803728)
By that definition, freedom of speech was always a fiction even in the US — and not just because broadening retaliation enough to say consequences "are" a retaliation is casting a net so wide that it denies causality.

I wonder how many people got away with sincerely saying "Hail Satan, that Jesus bloke was an idiot" in the late 17th (or even 19th) century Bible Belt?

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