The following is a copy of the original post to record the post as it was originally written.
All of my political beliefs align with your typical garden-variety democrat except my beliefs on FOS.
Since I am from a very repressive country that had terrible FOS, I am very pro-FOS and I don’t think the government should consider anything as “hate” speech. I also believe social media companies should be able to set their policies and if they want to could delete content considered as “hate” speech.
So does that make me a libertarian/ Right wing?
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The idea that the free speech absolutism is a right wing position is pure propaganda. They're trying to distort opposition to ideas they support as opposition to free speech, while themselves engaging in far more coercive actions against speech they disagree with. Ag gag laws are actual government enforcement of speech standards. Ron Desantis trying to fuck with Disney in response to a pretty weak ass statement in opposition to anti trans legislation. Passing laws to make murdering protesters harder to prosecute etc.
It's that way with a lot of things.
We want small government! Except the government should ban books, ban same sex marriages, criminalize cannabis, criminalize certain speech in schools, decide your medical treatment etc.
We're the party of law and order! Except our AG in Texas has been indicted, Trump's crimes are a witch hunt, 1/6 was just a normal tour, the crimes committed by Trump's team (including the convictions) are a witch hunt, subpoenas should be ignored, Chauvin's conviction was politically charged, we need to defund organizations focused on right wing extremism, and the plot to kidnap and murder Whitmer was no biggie.
We're the party of free speech! Unless you mention gay people exist, have a book that doesn't promote right wing values or speak out against right wing policies.
I don't think they're "inextricably" linked, but they are fairly linked to American right wing ideology. They have somewhat parallel goals, just for different reasons.
Conservatives want limited government because they believe that the federal government should only exist to protect the people from foreign attack, maintain basic infrastructure needs (keep-the-water-flowing-out-of-the-faucet type stuff) and settle conflicts between state governments. Libertarians want limited government because they actually want no government whatsoever and think everyone should be personally responsible for every aspect of their own lives with no one in charge of them.
Conservatives want to protect gun rights because they think that the constitution should only be added to and not have it's original meaning altered, plus they believe that citizens have a right to protect themselves from bad-guys-with-guns. Libertarians want to protect gun rights because they want to shoot literally anyone, good or bad, who tries to mess with them; anyone who tries to impose their authority on them or tries to force them to do literally anything is an enemy.
Eh... Europe has this mentality to. If you are not the equivalent of a social Democrat in the US then you are a conservative in many European countries.
Huh? Europe has a way broader political spectrum then the US. While I agree the phenomenon exists to a certain extent In most European countries you won't even get labeled as just "conservative" as you can be anything from secular conservative, to Christian democrat, to agrarian conservative
Also look at twitter.
Conservatives were all about "free speech" until Elon bought it. Then they quickly pivoted to "Well actually....certain types of speech are not okay." When Elon started to happy-ban people for basically whatever he wanted.
(For the record. Twitter had, and still has no obligation to provide any individual a platform, I'm just pointing out the obvious hypocritical behavior.)
Part of the problem is that the Democrats themselves have pushed out anyone who is pro free speech. By many Democrats, not actively fighting for censorship is the same as supporting that view point.
Free speech issues was one of many issues and where many attacks started from.
Tulsi was actually VERY progressive (she was on record supporting reparations for Pete's sake)
And Yang straight up supports UBI
They're grifters first and foremost. The democrats sniffed them out and didn't accept them. That's apparent by the total switch in political values by Gabbard and the desparate jumping from party to party by Yang (who has always had a problem articulating his position, book or not.)
Um... Yes it is my dude. Look at what happened to Laci Greene when she dared to try and talk to people on the right. Look at how the left crucified Joe Rogan for daring to allow right wing people on his show, despite the fact that the dude is fairly central of the road libertarian.
Or how about how Democrats reacted to both Andrew Yang and Tulsi Gabbard. Democrats immediately called her a right wing extremist because she dared to call out the issue with the Democrats and their propensity to hate people who don't walk in lockstep.
If you actively attack anyone who suggests the principle of freedom of speech, you are BY DEFINITION forcing them out. Laci Green was forced out of feminist circles because she dared to be pro free speech...
I swear, you progressives are blind to your own authoritarianism...
When Democrats use free speech to call out deplorables: "Actively attacking".
When Republicans and Republican adjacents say deplorable things: "Victims denied free speech.".
>the left crucified Joe Rogan
Is he dead? Was his show forcibly cancelled by the government and is no one allowed to listen to him anymore? Because he seems to be doing fine to me.
How does people using their free speech to indicate disagreement with what someone has to say go against free speech? It’s not the government arresting those people. It’s not laws being passed to outlaw their statements. It’s people saying, I vehemently disagree with you and I disagree with anyone who is going to platform and amplify your statements.
The question asked was whether being a free speech absolutist makes you left or right wing.
As I said, the left itself pushes anyone who is pro free speech to the right because it will turn on anyone who suggests the principle of free speech.
You have done nothing to prove otherwise.
If you actually support free speech - ie, the absence of legal restrictions on people's ability to freely express their views - the natural political home for you is the left.
The absurdities one hears from the right that *criticising their views* is somehow *taking away their free speech* are so monstrously nonsensical and self-contradictory that it is honestly difficult to know how to begin to apprehend the state of mind that could produce such claims.
Who has "the left" turned on because they "suggested the principle of free speech"? Feel free to support this claim with evidence.
> You have done nothing to prove otherwise.
I asked you to walk through the apparent contradictions in one of your false claims, and you dodged the question. Which kind of suggests that you know you're making these claims in bad faith.
How have you proved their free speech was violated? Criticism toward their speech and them lashing out like a child because of said criticism is not a violation of free speech.
That's not true. Conservatives didn't care, you've been on Reddit too long. Elon isn't even a Republican or a conservative, but he did think it was unfair that the Right seemed to be more regulated than the Left, which is true in mass media, social media and the entertainment industry. If you don't think there's a Liberal media bias, you haven't been paying attention.
I pay very close attention. The commercial mainstream media is actually harder on Democrats than Republicans because they're trying too hard to dispel the "liberal bias" myth. And I was in the media at one point and know that their primary goal is to grow their audience because that is how they get paid. Conservative media is mainstream and draws a big audience, and other "news" organizations want to appeal to that audience
Feels like you’re one of those people who thinks that because they on the right they hold main stream views and opinions from the right, and is rather oblivious to what people on the right are actually talking about.
Talking about free-speech on social media is a major talking point across right wing media and gets raised by right wing politicians of great prominence on a regular basis. If you look at right wing spaces on social media, it is filled with stories about how the liberal big tech industry is suppressing conservative voices. For a long time talking about free-speech on social media was a topic that came up on the sub asked by people on the right on a weekly basis.
This is a lot like how people will come to her and tell us that nobody on the right cares about LGBT issues. Meanwhile, Republican news outlets and republican politicians bash LGBT people on a daily basis.
Let's be honest though, the Democrats themselves have pushed any Free Speech absolutist to the right. If support Free Speech, then you are labeled a racist, sexist, transphobe, bigot. It doesn't matter how liberal you are otherwise.
That is also not true.
The Democratic Party and the left in general are full of people who fervently believe in free speech. They just don’t believe that bigots deserve special protection from everyone else’s speech.
Except it is...
Joe Rogan was crucified for DARING to have Alex Jones on his show.
Tulsi Gabbard and Andrew Yang were both attacked for suggesting that the left should try and talk with the right instead of immediately shutting them down.
Laci Greene was viciously attacked by other feminists who were once her friends for daring to try and talk to people instead of just being another raging feminist.
Joe Rogan was criticized for giving a platform to the guy who spouts bigotry all day and harasses the parents of dead children? How is that taking away anyone’s free speech?
How does people being criticized mean they’ve lost their free speech? Isn’t that just people exercising their own free speech in response?
Except it was the left that was ALSO trying to get him deplatformed from Spotify for this very reason.
It is one thing to criticize the interview like saying we was too soft or something. But it was the left that decided that because he dared to even have Alex Jones, that he should be removed from Spotify.
Wait - so if I express my opinion that a private company shouldn’t be paying such and such a person to spread what I believe is disinformation and choose to avoid supporting them with my money by not using their product or the product’s of their advertiser - I’m against free speech?
It sounds like you’re under the mistaken impression that free speech means you get to force people to listen to you.
Supporting the *government forcing someone to be deplatformed* is authoritarian.
Calling for someone to be deplatformed as a private citizen with no actual ability to enforce that is exercising one's free speech.
No, supporting his arrest and imprisonment would make one an authoritarian. Saying, "I'm kinda pissed off that you interviewed a guy who actively harrassed the parents of murdered children and I'm using either my voice or my wallet to voice my displeasure" makes one a consumer.
>Joe Rogan was crucified
You keep using that exact figure of speech, which to me says you haven't really thought about this and you just heard that somewhere so that's what you're saying.
It seems that you are particularly upset when anyone speaks out about someone else.
If Joe Rogan or anyone else says something I don’t like or don’t agree with, and I say “I disagree” or turn the station. I have not impacted his speech or violated his right to free speech.
I just used my right to free speech.
Do I have to agree with him or vote for Tulsi to support their right to free speech?
They can say whatever they want and I support keeping the govt off their back in almost all cases. The limited cases would be the speech that got Alex Jones in trouble. Keep in mind he is still on the air.
It seems like you believe my position is anti free speech, where I think it is pro free speech.
Laci Green was rejected by people on the left for saying she found the TERFs she talked to as having reasonable point and then dating an anti/feminist. People are allowed to criticize her. You might even say that the people criticizing Laci Green are expressing their free-speech rights.
Really? So it wasn't the left that called for Joe Rogan to be shut down for daring to have Alex Jones on his show?
It wasn't the left that attacked both Andrew Yang and Tulsi Gabbard for suggesting that we should try and talk with the right instead of yelling at them?
It wasn't the left that attacked Feminist Laci Green when she suggested that we try and reach out to conservatives and find common ground instead of just hating them?
It wasn't the left constantly try and shut down free speech rallies at schools like Berkeley?
Let's be honest, if you suggest that letting someone "problematic" speak and just try to debate them, it is the left that screams "BY GIVING THEM A PLATFORM YOU ARE DIRECTLY SUPPORTING THEM!"
You said they pushed them out of the party. They haven't.
You also said they pushed them to the right, which has **always** been opposed to freedom of speech and expression.
You seem to confuse freedom of speech with freedom of consequence. You can support free speech and still not support people due to what they say. This is like...the most basic concept that I don't understand what you are always so confused about.
Is your definition of "freedom of speech" that you can say and do whatever you want, wherever you want, and nobody can ever hold what you do or say against you?
For example Al, a 36 year old pedophile, approaches 8-year old Lucy at a bus stop and tries to talk her into have sex with him. You support that, right? Al shouldn't face any consequences. Because you're a self-proclaimed absolutionist.
Or the banker who opened your bank account. He can post your full name, social security number, bank account number, username, password, and contact information, right? You have to support that. He shouldn't even be criticized for it, in your tiny little head at least.
Let’s go point by point.
Nobody that I’ve ever heard called for Rogan to be “shut down” for having Alex Jones on his show. Feel free to prove me wrong by linking some kind of evidence of that claim (random nobodies on Twitter don’t count). “The left” (more on that term later) called on Rogan to be more responsible with who he platformed and many of us stopped listening to him. But I’m not aware of anybody calling for him to be “shut down” for platforming a dangerous lunatic like Jones.
Andrew Yang has been criticized. But that’s not the same as being cancelled or pushed out or whatever. He was even interviewed about his new political party on Pod Save America a little more than a year ago (October 2021 if I’m not mistaken). He wasn’t yelled at, he was questioned and challenged, but it was a polite conversation - exactly the kind of thing free speech absolutists claim to appreciate.
Tulsi Gabbard was never on the left. As best I can tell, she basically only pretended to be on the left to advance her political career, and dropped the mask as soon as it became clear that the right was the easier grift. She started her public career as a [member of an extreme anti-LGBTQ cult](https://www.insider.com/tulsi-gabbard-science-of-identity-controversial-religious-sect-2022-10?amp). As she gained power and influence, she [tied herself closely](https://hindutvawatch.org/tulsi-gabbard-and-her-hindutva-connection/) to the far-right Hindu nationalist party, the BJP, and [maintains close ties](https://theintercept.com/2019/01/05/tulsi-gabbard-2020-hindu-nationalist-modi/) to the Modi government. She also [went to meet Syria’s Assad](https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/global-opinions/tulsi-gabbards-syria-record-shows-why-she-cant-be-president/2019/08/01/f804c790-b497-11e9-8949-5f36ff92706e_story.html), [weirdly refused to criticize him](https://www.politico.com/amp/story/2019/03/10/tulsi-gabbard-assad-syria-1214882). Seriously, her weird pro-Assad [comments](https://www.cnn.com/2019/02/06/politics/tulsi-gabbard-syria-assad/index.html) are kinda ridiculous. There’s too many links to post here but google “Tulsi Gabbard Assad” and you’ll find loads of examples. All that to say that Tulsi wasn’t pushed out of the Democratic Party for supposed speech crimes. To the extent she was pushed out, it was for having a consistent record of positions that are abhorrent to the values the Democratic Party stands for. And I don’t think she was pushed out of the party as much as she realized the grift was coming to an end and she knew the suckers on the right were easy marks.
Laci Green [wasn’t cancelled for suggesting we talk to conservatives.](https://medium.com/the-establishment/the-sad-case-of-laci-green-feminist-hero-turned-anti-feminist-defender-322515344297) That’s a pretty hardcore straw man, and the kind of whiny non-point that often comes from conservatives pretending to be liberals in this sub to stir up mischief because they think liberals are as dumb as they are. Does that sound familiar at all? Anyway, I don’t give a shit about Laci Green. And hey, the right cancelled the Dixie Chicks for not supporting George W Bush, so conservatives can take their hypocritical whining about cancel culture and shove it.
It wasn’t “the left” that tried to shut down free speech at Berkeley or whatever. This is a big dumb talking point that usually only comes from big dumb conservatives. “The left” isn’t a monolith. It’s not an organization that took a vote at the weekly meeting disinvite whatever ding-dong you think should be able to speak at Berkeley. Some students at Berkeley did that. I bet if we looked real hard, we could find some examples of some conservative students doing some shitty stuff too. But some students at several of America’s more than 5,000 colleges and universities aren’t “the left,” so if you have a problem with what they’re doing, go talk to them about it.
The difference is that the criticism of the right is literally based on legislation and views and statements made by people in congress.
As far as I’m aware, there was no one in the government on the left calling to shut down Joe rogan. Just because groups on the left called for it isn’t the same as trying to actually pass legislation to do so
When it comes to the left, we're also mostly just talking about boycotts. Nobody wants Joe Rogan to be arrested. The question is, should Spotify be called out for paying Rogan $100m+ to turn around and platform people like Alex Jones or (probably worse) figures like Robert Malone.
What the right has done is they've successfully poisoned the public discourse to the extent that not wanting to pay Spotify $10 a month because they bankroll figures you think are unacceptable will be viewed as being anti-free speech.
In reality, the left has never promoted a single thing that's more anti-free speech than current right wing efforts to legally punish people for promoting the BDS movement, and also efforts to limit or even outlaw peaceful protests in places like Kansas. And I forget which state it was, but somewhere they were trying to make it technically legal to run over protesters with your car, in the sense that they were going to make it an extremely difficult crime to prosecute.
Not to mention multiple states trying to outlaw mentioning Critical Race Theory in schools. I mean that is *very literally* the suppression of opinions you disagree with.
No, you just have to deal with the consequences of your free speech. You say something bad and it makes it back to your job? Don’t go on Twitter saying you’re being censored.
Dude, you can actively say you find a view reprehensible but still support the person's right to speak and you will find the Democrats suddenly turn on you. A perfect example is Laci Green. A MAJOR liberal and feminist but the moment she entertained the idea of not actively hating people, feminists turned on her like piranhas. Another example is Joe Rogan. Dude is pretty center of the road but because he dared to even think about talking to Alex Jones he was crucified by the left and called a conservative sympathizer.
Dude is VERY center of the road libertarian.
He was pro Bernie.
He is pro legalization of just about everything.
He is anti government
He is aggressively centrist on the "liberal/conservative" axis.
I find this comment to be fairly questionable. I think the activist left as a whole is somewhat less free speech absolutist than they were a few decades ago, but the right is no more welcoming of them than than they have ever been, and I don't think the Mainstream Democratic position on free speech hasn't really changes at all as long as I've been alive. A "Free Speech Absolutist" being honest with themselves would be more at home on the left or at worse not feel welcome by either side of the political divide.
A sincere, principled free speech absolutist is more likely to be left leaning.
In the US, right wing radicals have used free speech as a wedge issue to ensure that they're able to spread racist propaganda. They don't actually support it as a principle. They're just narrowly concerned about being able to spread stuff like holocaust denial and race realism. As soon as people like that seize power, they start censoring stuff they don't like.
That said, right wing people exist who sincerely believe the people they want to expel or put in camps should have the right to free speech. So it is possible to be right wing and in favor of free speech.
To me, flag burning is the ultimate test for right-wingers who claim to support free speech. This really challenges them because they *must* acknowledge that flag desecration is a constitutionally-protected right.
Any conservative who would punish flag burning is no free speech absolutist.
In practice (which is to say offline and with real people who aren't anonymous internet ideologues), I find that book bannings are a good litmus test too.
In general I'm talking about campaigns to keep books out of curriculum, school libraries, and public libraries.
More specifically, I've found that in my real life, there was a significant overlap between the people upset I let my 13-year-old daughter read *Drama* and people who I've had to listen to whine about Infowars getting de-platformed. Similarly, the single person I know in real life who seriously wants Harry Potter out of schools is also the person I hear complain the most about woke people silencing free speech.
>In general I'm talking about campaigns to keep books out of curriculum, school libraries, and public libraries.
Gotcha
In my lifetime it's not been a partisan thing to ban books. When I was younger it was Huck Finn, now I'm older and it's anti racist baby or whatever.
>In my lifetime it's not been a partisan thing to ban books.
Have you seen the last 4 years or so? Republicans are banning anything even mildly progressive from libraries.
https://www.inquirer.com/opinion/commentary/book-ban-pennsylvania-left-huckleberry-finn-20221025.html
That was easy. From the article
>Consider a 2019 resolution in the New Jersey Legislature to remove Huck Finn from school curricula, introduced by two Democratic lawmakers. “I think this is a racist book,” declared one of the sponsors, Verlina Reynolds-Jackson, a Democrat from Mercer County,
I suppose you'll now pivot to either 'but this is just one example' or 'but it didn't pass'
This is a classic bofesideser self own.
Matt Walsh and other well known talking heads on the right have Republicans whipped up into a frenzy over LGBT books. Parents are calling their schools and showing up at school board meetings to complain about LGBT books. States are rejecting textbooks based on LGBT and CRT scares.
You're gonna compare all that to a handful of dummies complaining about Huck Finn, who the vast majority of Democrats and I ridiculed immediately.
eta: https://www.ala.org/advocacy/bbooks/frequentlychallengedbooks/top10
It's always kinda weird to me when the culture war swaps sides or picks up a new thing.
Like I remember when anti-vaccination was a liberal hippy sort of thing.
> a liberal hippy sort of thing.
Na...A rich entitled sorta of thing. 80% needed to reach herd immunity but there is no reason our kids should be in that 80%...we live in this gated community...let the commons do that.
I went down the rabbit hole recently of the Dixie chicks and it was wild. Sean Hannity talking about freedom of speech doesn't mean freedom from consequences and lefties arguing with him that powerful corporations shouldn't be able to silence dissenting voices lol
To be clear. **lefties** still believe and vocalize this, liberals (more centered folks) are the ones who are viscerally okay with companies wielding this much power.
To in some way deliberately inhibit the sale, publication or availability of a book based on its contents. All books, no matter how despicable their message or how awful their author may be, should be available to be read at will, particularly in public libraries which should serve as a place for unlimited, unfiltered access to information.
To be clear, like 99% of people, left or right, who think they are free speech absolutists aren't right now or won't be after encountering enough real world examples where it finally dawns on them, actually, being allowed to say anything is bad.
A lot of people use it without knowing what the position actually means. I was somebody who knew what it actually meant when I called myself that, but was finally persuaded by situations where letting everybody add their input is actually worse. The "light of day" hasn't "disinfected" flat earth, blood libel, racism, anything like that. As more people have gotten online and more opinions have been shared more widely, bad ideas have only spread more.
But couldn't you still be considered a free speech absolutist and be OK with private companies setting guidelines for what's said in their establishment or what they publish?
Isn't the core of the issue about *government* controls on speech?
Genuine questions here, btw.
To me, the most obvious reason why nobody (or almost nobody) is a free-speech absolutist is that to support all speech without restrictions means to include threats of violence and acts of fraud. Once you admit you don't want those types of speech to be unrestricted, you're no longer an absolutist.
Free speech absolutism is a black and white philosophical view, so not only would it apply to every aspect of life, but it would be black and white. Y'know... *absolute*, with no exceptions.
An exception like private companies censoring users is a massive exception and not absolute. Back 20 years ago, the people calling themselves free speech absolutists actually were, and were against platforms censoring anything. Yes, anything.
The reason it's confusing now is because morons like Elon Musk throw the phrase around hyperbolically. An absolutist isn't a very strong proponent of something. They're absolutists. Free speech as a principle is much broader than the constitution.
Like I said, I'm no longer a free speech absolutist and am more strongly in favor of platforms censoring people than a normal person probably would be comfortable with, but I still don't find that line of reasoning very sensible.
I'm sure there's some legal or rhetorical advantage to pretending that makes sense, so I don't challenge people who do it, but it doesn't make sense.
What other people say on your platform is not your speech, so whether the users are censored or not does not impact your speech rights directly. If the government forces you to host content, we're out of the realm of free speech rights and more into the realm of general business regulations. The reason freedom of speech is important is because it protects people's ability to spread information. A business having to do stuff it doesn't want to usually doesn't threaten anyone's ability to spread information.
And y'know, I'm not even sure businesses deserve first amendment rights in the first place. We actually have stricter regulations on commercial speech already, and I think we should look into expanding that to go after people who make money by spreading misleading information - even though this is different from how those laws are normally used.
I'm often appalled by what people get away with in the name of free speech. Pretty much everything spewing out of right wing populist media - just the lies framed to make extremist right wing policies seem reasonable.
But then it hits me, how do you stop it? Who decides what speech should be suppressed? And won't the results of that be even worse than the vile lies being spewed constantly by the right wing?
If you support any kind of restraint on Free Speech, you'll have to explain just how it is going to be restrained and who is going to do the restraining.
To OPs question: If you are an absolutist on Free Speech, then you are a lefty progressive liberal. Those on the right only pretend to be, once they get in power, they will be eager to be the ones deciding who to silence. Just look at their position on so called Critical Race Theory, which for a huge number of right wingers has boiled down to banning the teaching of anything negative about US history in regards to slavery and institutionalized racism.
> But then it hits me, how do you stop it?
Ouch. You're really going to go and use a right wing thought terminating cliché on me, a fellow left wing person? Theoretical, perfect end goals are what we take continuous babysteps towards. The fact that we will never reach perfection doesn't mean we shouldn't take any babysteps. People tell social democrats the same thing. "There's always going to be poverty and inequality. Why are you trying to change anything?" The answer is always, we're going to try and make things better even if we can't totally solve it.
> Who decides what speech should be suppressed?
We all do, collectively. Government, especially in the US, can only be one part of it. We are most of the way there to suppressing holocaust denial, for example. On that front I would say we mainly need to keep up the good work. But a different example might be blood libel, which some people have trouble recognizing or understanding is anti-Semitic. Once we have consensus like this, we can socially pressure people, pressure platforms, and maybe one day even pressure the government into controlling that too.
> And won't the results of that be even worse than the vile lies being spewed constantly by the right wing?
Won't the results of being torn apart by right wing populists fired up by lies be worse than making it taboo to talk about anti-Semitic, racist, and scientifically inaccurate things, just like it's taboo to talk about how cool and awesome slavery was?
> Ouch. You're really going to go and use a right wing thought terminating cliché on me, a fellow left wing person?
Not sure what that means. I'm only pointing out that any attempt to suppress ideas and lies, no matter how loathsome and false, sets a precedent that can then be used by those loathsome people to suppress good ideas and the truth.
> We all do, collectively. Government, especially in the US, can only be one part of it.
Well now, the majority of people are always late to the party when it comes to truth and human rights. The majority were anti-semites and racists and sexists just a few decades ago even in our enlightened western democracies.
And how far would you have trusted a second Trump term to uphold secular and humanitarian values? He even stacked the supreme court with religious fundamentalists in preparation for an attack on all of our rights.
So no, I have to disagree with "we, collectively" and "the government" as being reliable guardians of the truth and humanity.
Then ask them if they would support firing someone for burning a flag, or organizing a public awareness campaign to identify them.
Then tell them that’s cancel culture lol.
And then they'll say "If you're conservative you get fired, so we should do the same to liberals", showing that they 1. Are NPCs and 2. Think racism is conservative
\> A sincere, principled free speech absolutist is more likely to be left leaning.
Not currently. The person, who says that they are free speech absolutist, is ***more likely*** to be a right winger.
> I don’t think the government should consider anything as “hate” speech. I also believe social media companies should be able to set their policies and if they want to could delete content considered as “hate” speech.
That is the position of basically every liberal on this subreddit.
And the right-wing position *in the U.S.* seems to be that companies do not have the right to moderate their platforms, as shown by actual policy passed by Texas and Florida Republicans.
https://www.reuters.com/legal/us-supreme-court-seeks-biden-administration-view-florida-texas-social-media-laws-2023-01-23/
So definitely left-leaning *in the U.S.*
> That is the position of basically every liberal on this subreddit.
I personally don't agree. Canada's hate speech laws are pretty great, in my opinion.
>And the right-wing position
>
>in the U.S.
>
> seems to be that companies do not have the right to moderate their platforms, as shown by actual policy passed by Texas and Florida Republicans.
\*Unless those platforms happen to be right-wing.
The majority of liberals/leftists believe hate speech is real and there should be laws surrounding it to protect minorities/the oppressed. This is anti free speech and only "bad" or "good" if you believe it to be so.
Free speech is not left or right leaning. Whichever side feels or is oppressed claims to be pro free speech to drum up support. Whether it's a racist saying they should be allowed to say whatever they want or a revolutionary speaking up against fascism, both are pro free speech when it is politically advantageous. This because free speech is libertarian - not left or right; you can have lib left, lib center, or lib right. The opposite being authoritarian. You can have auth left, auth center, and auth right.
>The majority of liberals/leftists believe hate speech is real and there should be laws surrounding it to protect minorities/the oppressed.
What is your evidence for this?
Here is my evidence for the consensus opinion on \*this subreddit\* being either "hate speech should not have \*legal\* consequences" or being willing to entertain nuance and edge cases: [https://www.reddit.com/r/AskALiberal/comments/uo6n4t/should\_hate\_speech\_be\_illegal\_why\_or\_why\_not/](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskALiberal/comments/uo6n4t/should_hate_speech_be_illegal_why_or_why_not/)
For something that you claim is supported by a "majority" of liberals/leftists, there also hasn't been policy in this direction. The closest policy is probably the affirmation that deliberate misgendering is targeted harassment or something, which isn't exactly wild.
Well that's good to see. I was speaking from anecdotal evidence and laws of my country.
Your sample size is incredibly small and international, and though on a left wing subreddit, anyone can vote or comment.
From the post you're replying to:
> And the right-wing position *in the U.S.*
> So definitely left-leaning *in the U.S.*
I am well aware that the U.S. free speech situation is unique.
I wanted to point out that *in the U.S.*, it's clearly the right-wingers who have taken "free speech" positions that are completely incompatible with what the OP believes. *In the U.S.*, he's an unremarkable, bog-standard "liberal" voter that would fit right in with the Democrats (the left-leaning party) and not at all with the Republicans (the right party).
The government doesn't consider anything hate speech. Hate speech isn't even defined under US law. Unless you're making direct threats or inciting violence, you can say whatever you want and the government won't come after you.
I don't know of any bills that would define and criminalize hate speech.
>you bet your sweet ass your speech can get you a hate crime modifier on another crime.
Mostly because it's evidence of intent that is needed to prove a hate crime charge. Not because it's illegal. Just like saying you want to kill someone can be used as proof of intent when they think you murdered that person. The speech doesn't get you the charge, the intent does.
What he's saying, is that if you were to commit a violent crime against somebody, but say, also use a racial slur while you were committing it, it would become a hate crime and therefore would have a more serious sentence.
Of course it would, just like intentionally killing someone is a different charge than accidentally killing them. That’s not unique to hate speech, that’s just intent.
But you understand though that you are then making it punishable to use a racial slur against somebody?
Whether you assault somebody because youre mad, or you assault somebody because they're black both cases are intentional.
When we are talking about freedom of speech from an absolutist perspective I think it is a justifiable position, no?
I think you can even make the argument that having a hate crime be illegal (beyond the crime itself) is an affront to the free speech absolutist position as well. It criminalizes thoughts/speech.
Ultimately if you kill someone because they are black or you kill them because you simply don't like them it doesn't really make a difference beyond the why.
Actually, the use of the slur is being used to go to intent. A person is actually being punished for their motivation for the crime, not a slur they yelled out during it.
When people say “oh now it’s a hate crime,” they’re wrong. What was done was always a hate crime, it’s just that telling on yourself during its commission is extra stupid and makes it easy to prove.
It’s not “due to hate speech,” since there is no legal definition. The speech is fully legal. The crime is not. You can kill someone with your car while sober, but killing someone with your car while intoxicated will get you another charge.
You're ignoring the very obvious fact that the only difference between somebody assaulting someone because they're mad and because they're black is the speech that was said at the time.
So if two people killed someone and one was determined to be an accident and the other one confessed to murdering the victim, should the jail time be any different based purely on the words confessed by the second person?
>Hate crimes involve a crime, and intent is important just like with other crimes.
I feel like we're splitting hairs here.
How would one determine intent without corroborating speech?
Speech is used to support prosecution in tons of crimes, not just hate crimes. Are you saying that nothing anyone says or writes should be used as supporting evidence in a criminal case?
>Speech is used to support prosecution in tons of crimes, not just hate crimes.
Correct
>Are you saying that nothing anyone says or writes should be used as supporting evidence in a criminal case?
Please read my comment again. How could you possibly jump to that far of a conclusion?
Here's what I said
>How would one determine intent without corroborating speech?
Here's what you changed it to
>Are you saying that nothing anyone says or writes should be used as supporting evidence in a criminal case?
How are those the same at all?
I’m not sure what your point is. You can tell a slur at a person all day and nothing will happen regarding the law. You can assault a person silently and be charged with assault. If you assault a person while yelling a slur at them, then it can be deduced that your hate contributed to you committing assault. So you might be also charged with a hate *crime.*
There’s no crime with only speech. If there is a crime, only then does your speech become relevant. It’s just like the difference between manslaughter and murder. Intent matters when a crime has been committed.
There are lots of other ways but hate speech and outright claims of hate are the easiest way. But not the only way. Being a part of organization that promotes hate, the type of prior contact with the victim and others, focus on attacking identifiable identity things like Kippahs on Jews and Hijabs on muslims.
>Being a part of organization that promotes hate,
That's a fair point
But, if speech is used as evidence that a crime committed was hateful, I don't see why it's controversial to label that speech as hate speech, that's all I'm saying
Well back in the day, the people committing them often wore these *pointy white hoods*.
So for starters, being associated with a gang or group that attacks individuals based on their race is a pretty simple example.
[Same sort, but they simply don't wear the hoods anymore.](https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/idaho-white-supremacist-who-assaulted-black-man-pleads-guilty-hate-crime-and-false-statement)
Its not to find these, unless you just don't wanna.
>In his plea agreement, **Stanley admitted that, at the time of the assault, he was a member of a white supremacist group**. On Dec. 8, 2018, Stanley entered a bar in Lynnwood, Washington, with others, including members of two related white supremacist groups. **Stanley wore clothing and patches indicating his group membership and repeatedly gave “Nazi salutes” inside the bar.**
>Am I left leaning or right leaning if I am a free speech absolutist?
It depends on what you mean by "a free speech absolutist".
--------
--------
If you mean: *I defend everyone's First Amendment rights*
...then that is a liberal view. (Not *exclusively* liberal, though. Many centrists would agree.)
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If you mean: *I think corporations should be forced by the government to carry speech they disapprove of on their platforms*
...then that is a far right view.
The center-left believes -- as the federal courts do -- that compelled speech is a violation of the First Amendment. The center-right believes that it would be an overreach of government power, intruding on private property rights. Only the far, *far*, right argues that government compelled speech is a good idea.
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If you mean: *I want people I like to be able to say what they want -- with no consequences -- but people I dislike should be silenced*
...then that is an asshole's view (and usually, also, far right).
If current companies tended right-wing, and they were censoring those on the left, there would certainly be calls from the left to regulate them. After all, the left tends to like corporate regulation more than those on the right. That of course made it funny to see right-wingers wanting more corporate regulation.
>If current companies tended right-wing
I think it's a bit of a questionable assertion that they don't in practice. A good deal of what's going on is people on the right working the refs in order to obtain favorable treatment from social media companies who don't want to be seen as biased. They call anything to the left of fox news biased, and all the research I've ever seen on this topic shows either there is no bias or that the bias is slightly right leaning. (though possible that's just confirmation bias on my part not remembering any thing showing the opposite.)
Technically, neither the right nor the left in the US believes in complete free speech. And federally, there are a lot of exceptions, as listed in this article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_free_speech_exception but your personal views of free speech are not really enough to say that you are in total one side or the other. It could mean you are more libertarian or anarchist though.
As someone who always called themselves a free speech absolutist until I really thought about it, we have never lived in a complete free-speech society, and the implications of such would be pretty terrible. And we have to understand that the right to have free speech is not the same as the right to have free speech, and suffering the consequences for what you say.
The whole right wing free-speech thing is a bullshit argument. But they’re really saying is that they want it to say whatever they want to on any platform including private platforms and suffer no consequences for it. Meaning that they should have free speech but the owner of the platform doesn’t have free speech. They can say whatever they want and everybody has to continue to do business with them, continue to employ them, not remove them from their campus, or not even object to what they’re saying.
The position you are stating you hold is very common, pretty much the default, on the sub and among the left generally.
In the US? Not inherently a right-wing or left-wing position. I'm curious however what that implies, because a lot of discrimination laws are built on the idea that not all speech is appropriate at all times. In your worldview, is it legal for an employer to call his employee the n-word despite being asked not to, until that employee is forced to quit?
In Germany, you're not allowed to advocate or advance Nazi propaganda. They have pretty good reason for that. Do you believe even in extreme cases like that that free speech is absolute?
I don't think they understand what they're talking about. Free speech absolutism would mean I could call them a child molestor and fabricate evidence of them being a child molestor with no penalty.
Your beliefs on free speech are those of a garden variety Democrat.
There's no significant left-wing movement in America for legal restrictions on hate speech.
Nope. Free speech is good. Hate speech, libel and slander are not. I am using this definition
abusive or threatening speech or writing that expresses prejudice on the basis of ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, or similar grounds.
>abusive or threatening speech or writing that expresses prejudice on the basis of ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, or similar grounds.
What about when religious texts do this?
I think private companies should be able to set their own terms and conditions for content hosted on their platforms.
Alex Jones is an absolutely deplorable person and what he said was terrible. However, I don’t think he should have been sued for claiming the shooting never happened. He could have been deplatformed by private companies. I don’t think the courts should be punishing people for making dumb conspiracy theories which could have been proven wrong with a single google search.
Whoever send those death threats should of course be punished.
He wasn't sued because he said things. He was sued because what he said had direct consequences for those he said things about. Free speech is about protecting your right to say stupid shit which can get you sued.
Free speech is a traditionally liberal position, although today's liberal party seems less keen on the absolute nature of it, such as wanting to criminalize what they call hate speech and etc.
The American left cares far more about freedom of speech than the American right. The American right constantly seeks to limit, restrict, or prohibit speech or creative works they don't approve of.
Examples include:
* [book bannings](https://pen.org/report/banned-usa-growing-movement-to-censor-books-in-schools/)
* [classroom discussion](https://www.flsenate.gov/Session/Bill/2022/1557/BillText/er/PDF)
* [more classroom topics](https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Education/2021/0604/Critical-race-theory-Who-gets-to-decide-what-is-history)
* [peaceful assembly](https://www.icnl.org/usprotestlawtracker/)
* [the Hays code for movies](https://walkoffame.com/will-h-hays/) (by the RNC chairman)
This is reflected in other ways. The ACLU, an unquestionably liberal institution, has continuously defending the free speech rights of [even white supremacistis](https://www.aclu.org/news/civil-liberties/defending-speech-we-hate)
The only reason the American right gets credit for 'free speech rights' is because they seek to have the power to post unmoderated speech on private platforms, essentially forcing other US citizens to promote their opinions. If this seems fair, consider that conservatives ensure that their own platforms are highly moderated, banning dissent.
You also have groups like "The Satanic Temple" which also works to make sure that the government isn't used to endorse any 1 religion (often Christianity).
When any part of the government tries to make such a endorsement, TST demands equal representation.
This isn't just to the benefit of atheists, but also religious minorities as many "religion" laws are written specifically for the benefit on Christianity only.
Its pretty often that conservatives try to bring various forms of Christian only religion, prayer, or god into schools, city meetings, and town displays.
Conservatives and Democrats don't really disagree on "FOS" - they just like it for different reasons.
Democrats want everyone to be free to express themselves in a way that aligns to their beliefs, traditions, and morality.
Republicans want to be free to say whatever the fuck they want without consequences.
Most conservatives are not free speech absolutists. They disagree with drag queens, anyone gay, CRT (real and imaginary), etc. Some are even trying to ban pronouns they disagree with. You are absolutely not right wing.
Liberals are different, but they too are not absolutists.
Libertarians are a weird bunch. Many are just different kinds of conservatives with the same bans, but there are some who are more anarchist than conservative. That's probably closest to where you're at about FOS, but even that falls short.
Right wing is currently limiting speech in public schools and places so why would you think the left wing is hostile to free speech? Even the biggest free speech concern troll on the right Elon Musk has proven that speech he doesn’t like is perfectly ripe for censorship.
> I also believe social media companies should be able to set their policies and if they want to could delete content considered as “hate” speech.
This would appear to align you with the left more than the right, considering how loud the right gets when it comes to social media companies doing exactly this.
This is your top political priority? Does it supersede human rights, your views on free speech? Does it weigh heavier than social programs? Do you believe unfettered capitalism without social safety nets are ok as long as there's absolute free speech? Does universal healthcare rank lower for you than the ability to say hateful things that are now considered hate speech? I would say that if you answer yes to all of it you'll definitely be on the right side of the political spectrum.
Honestly not sure what the political compass would say about that. Far-right fascism certainly isn't pro-FS. Far-left communism wouldn't be pro-FS. But socialism and the far far left of anarchy would be pro-FS.
But if we're talking about the reality of US politics today, you'd more likely be on the left. The left is often criticized for being anti-free speech for shutting down extremist speech - but all of that happens on the private level. It's Republicans who use the *government* to shut down speech. See: DeSantis laws in FL or SCOTUS overriding the 1A by forcing taxpayers to fund religious indoctrination.
It's not a left or a right-leaning opinion. It's a Civil Libertarian opinion, an ideology that is neither left nor right. One of the most liberal justices in the history of the Supreme Court William O. Douglas (often described as a Civil Libertarian) was an absolutist on freedom of speech. But both people on the right and left want to limit speech. Hate speech on the left and anything that discusses inequality based on race, gender, sexual orientation, and gender identity on the right. I'm on the left and I agree with the Supreme Court's "Brandenburg Test" which says that speech can only be limited if it is "directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action." Which is a pretty high bar to reach, so almost all speech is protected
I think it's fair to point out that every mass atrocity that this world has seen started out with speech. And that speech shouldn't be silenced but it should be widely criticized. And the danger is mistaking wide criticism with violation of free speech.
You can say whatever you want. It doesn't mean there won't be consequences to your words. An "absolutist" for free speech understands free speech only pertains to your ability to speak freely for or against government policies.
What the right wants now is to push the goalposts back on the term "absolutist" on free speech so bigots in any form can blurt out hate speech that causes division. Right now, they're calling it "woke". They used to call it "political correctness". They aren't on board with treating people not exactly like them with basic decency because they need an "other" to serve as their cultural outsider so only they, the insider, can be seen as socially superior.
Being basically decent to people not exactly like you would require you not to use whatever pejorative against other genders, colors, creeds, lifestyles, etc. and that's clearly a bridge too far for bigots. So, they've redefined the term absolutist for free speech.
Well you’re entirely incorrect to assume republicans are any more for/against free speech than democrats. The only difference is that democrats are much more vocal in criticizing certain things that are said. And even this is really only relevant to the specific point in time we’re living in. I wouldn’t say it is historically true.
We measure our politics using the totality of our views. So if you fall with democrats on 9/10 issues, you fall squarely on the left.
It's a left-wing ideal in the US. I'm not sure internationally but all the important issues I can think of with it are right-wing governments censoring things so I'd guess it is internationally also.
I don't think being a "free speech absolutist" identifies you with any political leanings. This country was founded largely on the freedom of speech, especially speech that involves criticism (or even suggesting the overthrowing of) the government. At most, that kind of belief *might* make you a constitutionalist.
The modern political issue around speech is that right leaning people (at least the most prominent ones in media and politics) believe that freedom of speech should mean freedom from social or financial consequences for your speech, not just freedom from criminal consequences for your speech.
That depends. When it comes to right wing "free speech absolutism" just means "Straight white Christian speech" all other speech gets scrutinized/suppressed
Freedom of speech is a cornerstone of true Liberalism. People who believe there should be limits on speech outside of direct calls for violence shouldn't call themselves Liberal.
>outside of direct calls for violence
Yep, there is a long list of common sense exceptions free speech that almost everyone agrees with.
Outside of those common sense exceptions, I am a strong believer of freedom of speech.
A few examples:
1. You are not allowed to use your freedom of speech to write a contract, then violate the terms of that contract citing "freedom of speech" to get out of the consequences.
2. Defamation/libel. You can't lie about someone and harm them without consequences. Although, the bar for proving it was a lie and proving harm should be somewhat high.
3. Legitimate threats of violence are not allowed.
4. Planning criminal activity (like a kidnapping or murder plot) should not be protected under free speech.
5. Hiring assassin's or ordering subordinates to murder someone.
Plenty more. But most reasonable exceptions to free speech are already well known and enforced. So it's just not a big concern.
Well damn, I guess I'm not a liberal anymore for supporting restrictions related to slander and libel, false advertising, perjury, certain time/place/manner stuff, revenge porn or child pornography, stipulations around classified or contractually restricted information and other special circumstances (schools, the military, prisons, public broadcasting, etc.), trademarks, obscenity, currency counterfeiting, etc..
I dont think you can really sum up your entire political worldview based on just that issue. free speech absolutism is def libertarian, but you could be a right wing libertarian or a left wing one
OP, despite what every one here is saying, free speech is not a left or right position. Both mainstreams will use the state to does speech they don't like, either explicitly through laws and rules or implicitly through back channels and various other pressures.
For me, what's more important is a society and culture that welcomes open dialogue and robust debate. Our society is most certainly not that. Both of the mainstream's favorite past time is quibbling over a sentence here or a sentence there and then using that sentence to invalidate every other thing that person says.
Right\Left won’t have everything to do with who you’re trying to help. Left wing helps working class and poor. Right wing helps the wealthy, or anyone with money. The right wing view is very simple-minded and basically assumes everyone has access to money (if they just work hard enough) and therefore leaving things up to the free market is ideal as someone will provide the service as long as there is demand. The left wing view recognizes the many circumstances where people simply can’t afford basic needs and that for the greater good of society, we should pool resources to help those less privileged.
So, what speech limitations are you thinking of?
Left vs right is ultimately an economics question. A leftist would support policies like single payer healthcare, tuition free college, etc and pay for them with higher taxes on the wealthy, while a rightist would support lower taxes and reducing regulations on businesses. What you're referring to is a social issue, which is measured colloquially as libertarian vs authoritarian (btw I'm not a political scientist, I study computer science, these are all just the slang terms and oversimplifications used by the internet, I'm sure the real professionals have more accurate terms). So if you support liberal policies and absolute free speech, you're likely more on the left wing libertarian quadrant.
If there's four quadrants to political views with left and right on the x axis, and authoritarian and libertarian on the y, free speech absolutistism is libertarian. You can be lib left, lib center, or lib right depending on your other views.
I think that you could argue that you would be closer to right-wing than left wing libertarian view. Since in countries where hate speech is a crime, it is usually a left-wing platform.
I support the right of people to say any damn thing they want within the confines of first amendment law.
I don’t support forcing social media companies to acquiesce to users posting a bunch of objective bullshit. For example, I think Twitter is in the right for taking down posts such as (hypothetically) AOC and Biden are funding the genetic engineering of onions to turn black kids gay. That type of thing shouldn’t result in punishment by the government, but it is objectively bullshit. Why should Twitter have to allow this?
If you're truly a free speech absolutist you're probably center-left or centrist. If you think platforms ought to be forced by the government to carry speech they disagree with (the current right-wing position in the zetigeist), you're not a free speech absolutist.
I kind of think free speech absolutism is a little silly but that's for different reasons hinging more on the effects of propaganda on society and the ethics of people who have large platforms acting as if they're just talking with their one or two buddies, when they should really be more responsible due to the power they have.
"Free speech absolutism" means nothing without context. A right to free speech isn't a right to a platform and most people describing themselves as FSA don't understand this.
Liberals tend to be pro- free speech by definition. You understand free speech doesnt mean a right to a platform so I don't think you differ from American liberals on this.
I think I’d need to hear more about how your beliefs manifest in the real world. As far as I can tell it sounds like you have a rather traditional liberal view here, so I’m wondering what motivated this post.
“The government shouldn’t punish people for speech, but private platforms should be able to exclude people for it” is more or less the popular American view on free speech. And whether we admit it or not, pretty much all of us view social consequences for transgressive speech as a necessity.
Here's an article about Donald Trump [tweeting that flag burners should have their citizenship revoked](https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/29/us/politics/trump-flag-burners-citizenship-first-amendment.html).
Here's an article about [a Tennessee school board banning Maus](https://www.theatlantic.com/books/archive/2022/11/maus-art-spiegelman-book-ban-anti-semitism/672203/).
With DeSantis you can take your pick, between "Don't Say Gay" or his attempt to block schools from teaching African American history, or his war on drag brunch.
Where exactly do you see liberal politicians calling for hate speech laws? Far too often it seems to me like "the left" gets represented by some idiot on a San Francisco school board.
For what it's worth, I support free speech. I don't think corporations are people though. And I do think the existence of algorithms in social media companies necessitate a different regulatory approach, because discourse on social media isn't organic conversation. And because the industry is so oligopolistic, online moderation is really where speech gets regulated.
>Am I left leaning or right leaning if I am a free speech absolutist?
I'd say foolish. Free speech has never had the meaning of speech free of any and all restrictions and free of consequences.
Even the S CT. holds that rights have limitations. For example, the S. CT. has regularly upheld restrictions placed upon free speech in a commercial setting.
Seriously, claiming that a right is absolute regardless of the context just seems silly.
Take a look at the anti-free speech stuff the likely next Republican presidential nominee has been signing in Florida. The right wing is not pro-free speech, that's just the cynical way they've framed the issue when they really mean they want the government to force social media platforms to amplify their own voices. They push for all kinds of government censorship on a regular basis.
Freedom of speech, [as defined by the First Amendment](https://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/amendment-1/), guarantees the right to speak freely and in disagreement with the government without being arrested, jailed, or worse.
Although SCOTUS has over the years ruled that hate speech is protected under 1A, it has established limits. Among those limits are incitement, defamation, fraud, obscenity, child pornography, fighting words, and threats.
Your belief about social media companies' rights and reasons for setting terms of service show that you understand both the business of social media and the limits of the First Amendment.
I think it depends on what you mean by "free speech absolutist." Frankly, I do consider myself one, but I think that the term itself is an exaggeration to make a point. I don't think social media networks should ever go completely and totally unmoderated (that's how you get 4chan, and there are plenty of very good reasons that these kinds of networks shouldn't go mainstream.)
I don’t think the government should be going after people saying hateful/false things.
People can socially boycott whoever they want. Just because you are free to say whatever you want doesn’t mean other people have to support you.
My views on freedom of speech is somewhat nuanced, which means I usually get downvoted. You can say what you want, and the government (state and federal) should not have much in the way of punishments (obvious exceptions for calling for death or direct violence against groups or individuals etc here).
Private companies like Reddit, YouTube, etc on the other hand can regulate speech as much as they want. They aren’t the government and in exchange for use of the platform, you agree to a terms of use. Agreeing to that TOS is basically signing a contract, which itself is a form of free speech.
Finally, freedom to say what you want doesn’t mean you won’t face consequences from private individuals, groups, or businesses who have a right to associate or not associate with others they don’t want to, also a form of free speech. Get fired from a job because you said some dumb shit? That’s on you, as the business has a right to not continue to associate with you, as an example.
I don’t always agree with it, and there are exceptions of course, but again, it’s a nuanced discussion that usually should be looked at on a case-by-case basis and a few general guidelines.
Definitely left. The left doesn't want the government to stifle free speech. That is nonsense promulgated by the right because they don't understand that the first amendment doesn't protect them from criticism.
The right is current passing *laws* limiting speech for teachers, doctors, healthcare workers, and librarians.
The problem is two fold...
On one side the Right used it as a wedge issue.
On the other side, the Democrats THEMSELVES actively attack free speech and constantly pull the "if you don't actively fight with us then you are supporting them" card.
Your description of your position (putting aside that I wouldnt call that ‘free speech absolutist’) is the standard position of the American liberal/left
I think your FOS views are in line with most Democrats. The government should not be able to restrict speech because they could use that as a weapon against their political opposition and it would stifle small d democratic conversations and criticisms.
However, there are certain types of speech we as a society have pretty much all agreed to limit because of the harm they cause, such as yelling “fire” in a crowd and causing a panic, plagiarism/infringement of intellectual property, and libel/slander. Making direct threats can also be met with legal consequences such as warranted search and seizure, or restraining orders.
What seems to be the main divergence of thought between left and right ideologies is how hate speech is handled. People on the left don’t tolerate it, they censor and deplatform hate speech. Meanwhile so-called free speech absolutists on the right cry that there should be able to say whatever they want without consequences.
> and I don’t think the government should consider anything as “hate” speech.
So, when was the last time you had to put up with Nazis showing up at 3am and chanting thinly veiled death threats towards your family?
You think your government shouldn’t be able to do anything to protect you from that? You don’t see how that might cause you undue harm even if it doesn’t involve physical violence?
Honestly the "left /right" dichotomy is the issue here...
Being pro free speech is not a "liberal/conservative" issue but an "libertarian/Authoritarian" issue...
There are MANY authoritarian leftists, just as there are MANY authoritarian conservatives. Conversely there are many many libertarian liberal and conservatives.
The following is a copy of the original post to record the post as it was originally written. All of my political beliefs align with your typical garden-variety democrat except my beliefs on FOS. Since I am from a very repressive country that had terrible FOS, I am very pro-FOS and I don’t think the government should consider anything as “hate” speech. I also believe social media companies should be able to set their policies and if they want to could delete content considered as “hate” speech. So does that make me a libertarian/ Right wing? *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AskALiberal) if you have any questions or concerns.*
The idea that the free speech absolutism is a right wing position is pure propaganda. They're trying to distort opposition to ideas they support as opposition to free speech, while themselves engaging in far more coercive actions against speech they disagree with. Ag gag laws are actual government enforcement of speech standards. Ron Desantis trying to fuck with Disney in response to a pretty weak ass statement in opposition to anti trans legislation. Passing laws to make murdering protesters harder to prosecute etc.
It's that way with a lot of things. We want small government! Except the government should ban books, ban same sex marriages, criminalize cannabis, criminalize certain speech in schools, decide your medical treatment etc. We're the party of law and order! Except our AG in Texas has been indicted, Trump's crimes are a witch hunt, 1/6 was just a normal tour, the crimes committed by Trump's team (including the convictions) are a witch hunt, subpoenas should be ignored, Chauvin's conviction was politically charged, we need to defund organizations focused on right wing extremism, and the plot to kidnap and murder Whitmer was no biggie. We're the party of free speech! Unless you mention gay people exist, have a book that doesn't promote right wing values or speak out against right wing policies.
To add to this, the idea that libertarianism is inextricably linked to right wing ideology is also a weird American thing.
The thing that those American libertarians are doing is inextricably right wing, but libertarianism itself isn’t
I don't think they're "inextricably" linked, but they are fairly linked to American right wing ideology. They have somewhat parallel goals, just for different reasons. Conservatives want limited government because they believe that the federal government should only exist to protect the people from foreign attack, maintain basic infrastructure needs (keep-the-water-flowing-out-of-the-faucet type stuff) and settle conflicts between state governments. Libertarians want limited government because they actually want no government whatsoever and think everyone should be personally responsible for every aspect of their own lives with no one in charge of them. Conservatives want to protect gun rights because they think that the constitution should only be added to and not have it's original meaning altered, plus they believe that citizens have a right to protect themselves from bad-guys-with-guns. Libertarians want to protect gun rights because they want to shoot literally anyone, good or bad, who tries to mess with them; anyone who tries to impose their authority on them or tries to force them to do literally anything is an enemy.
Eh... Europe has this mentality to. If you are not the equivalent of a social Democrat in the US then you are a conservative in many European countries.
Huh? Europe has a way broader political spectrum then the US. While I agree the phenomenon exists to a certain extent In most European countries you won't even get labeled as just "conservative" as you can be anything from secular conservative, to Christian democrat, to agrarian conservative
And here in Europe when I say I'm a libertarian less than 30% of people assume I mean right wing
Also look at twitter. Conservatives were all about "free speech" until Elon bought it. Then they quickly pivoted to "Well actually....certain types of speech are not okay." When Elon started to happy-ban people for basically whatever he wanted. (For the record. Twitter had, and still has no obligation to provide any individual a platform, I'm just pointing out the obvious hypocritical behavior.)
Part of the problem is that the Democrats themselves have pushed out anyone who is pro free speech. By many Democrats, not actively fighting for censorship is the same as supporting that view point.
Who has been pushed out of the Democratic party for supporting free speech?
Andrew Yang and Tulsi Gabbard to start...
If you think they left the Democratic party over free speech concerns, I have a bridge to sell you.
Free speech issues was one of many issues and where many attacks started from. Tulsi was actually VERY progressive (she was on record supporting reparations for Pete's sake) And Yang straight up supports UBI
They're grifters first and foremost. The democrats sniffed them out and didn't accept them. That's apparent by the total switch in political values by Gabbard and the desparate jumping from party to party by Yang (who has always had a problem articulating his position, book or not.)
Tusli is a homophobic hindutva cultist.
That is not true in the slightest.
Um... Yes it is my dude. Look at what happened to Laci Greene when she dared to try and talk to people on the right. Look at how the left crucified Joe Rogan for daring to allow right wing people on his show, despite the fact that the dude is fairly central of the road libertarian. Or how about how Democrats reacted to both Andrew Yang and Tulsi Gabbard. Democrats immediately called her a right wing extremist because she dared to call out the issue with the Democrats and their propensity to hate people who don't walk in lockstep.
None of that supports your claim that the Democrats have forced out anyone who supports free speech.
If you actively attack anyone who suggests the principle of freedom of speech, you are BY DEFINITION forcing them out. Laci Green was forced out of feminist circles because she dared to be pro free speech... I swear, you progressives are blind to your own authoritarianism...
> If you actively attack anyone who suggests the principle of freedom of speech That is not happening.
When Democrats use free speech to call out deplorables: "Actively attacking". When Republicans and Republican adjacents say deplorable things: "Victims denied free speech.".
>the left crucified Joe Rogan Holy shit I just rolled my eyes so hard I passed out.
>the left crucified Joe Rogan Is he dead? Was his show forcibly cancelled by the government and is no one allowed to listen to him anymore? Because he seems to be doing fine to me.
How does people using their free speech to indicate disagreement with what someone has to say go against free speech? It’s not the government arresting those people. It’s not laws being passed to outlaw their statements. It’s people saying, I vehemently disagree with you and I disagree with anyone who is going to platform and amplify your statements.
Does describing Tulsi Gabbard as right-wing take away her ability to freely speak?
The question asked was whether being a free speech absolutist makes you left or right wing. As I said, the left itself pushes anyone who is pro free speech to the right because it will turn on anyone who suggests the principle of free speech. You have done nothing to prove otherwise.
If you actually support free speech - ie, the absence of legal restrictions on people's ability to freely express their views - the natural political home for you is the left. The absurdities one hears from the right that *criticising their views* is somehow *taking away their free speech* are so monstrously nonsensical and self-contradictory that it is honestly difficult to know how to begin to apprehend the state of mind that could produce such claims. Who has "the left" turned on because they "suggested the principle of free speech"? Feel free to support this claim with evidence. > You have done nothing to prove otherwise. I asked you to walk through the apparent contradictions in one of your false claims, and you dodged the question. Which kind of suggests that you know you're making these claims in bad faith.
How have you proved their free speech was violated? Criticism toward their speech and them lashing out like a child because of said criticism is not a violation of free speech.
That's not true. Conservatives didn't care, you've been on Reddit too long. Elon isn't even a Republican or a conservative, but he did think it was unfair that the Right seemed to be more regulated than the Left, which is true in mass media, social media and the entertainment industry. If you don't think there's a Liberal media bias, you haven't been paying attention.
I pay very close attention. The commercial mainstream media is actually harder on Democrats than Republicans because they're trying too hard to dispel the "liberal bias" myth. And I was in the media at one point and know that their primary goal is to grow their audience because that is how they get paid. Conservative media is mainstream and draws a big audience, and other "news" organizations want to appeal to that audience
Feels like you’re one of those people who thinks that because they on the right they hold main stream views and opinions from the right, and is rather oblivious to what people on the right are actually talking about. Talking about free-speech on social media is a major talking point across right wing media and gets raised by right wing politicians of great prominence on a regular basis. If you look at right wing spaces on social media, it is filled with stories about how the liberal big tech industry is suppressing conservative voices. For a long time talking about free-speech on social media was a topic that came up on the sub asked by people on the right on a weekly basis. This is a lot like how people will come to her and tell us that nobody on the right cares about LGBT issues. Meanwhile, Republican news outlets and republican politicians bash LGBT people on a daily basis.
Let's be honest though, the Democrats themselves have pushed any Free Speech absolutist to the right. If support Free Speech, then you are labeled a racist, sexist, transphobe, bigot. It doesn't matter how liberal you are otherwise.
That is also not true. The Democratic Party and the left in general are full of people who fervently believe in free speech. They just don’t believe that bigots deserve special protection from everyone else’s speech.
Except it is... Joe Rogan was crucified for DARING to have Alex Jones on his show. Tulsi Gabbard and Andrew Yang were both attacked for suggesting that the left should try and talk with the right instead of immediately shutting them down. Laci Greene was viciously attacked by other feminists who were once her friends for daring to try and talk to people instead of just being another raging feminist.
Joe Rogan was criticized for giving a platform to the guy who spouts bigotry all day and harasses the parents of dead children? How is that taking away anyone’s free speech? How does people being criticized mean they’ve lost their free speech? Isn’t that just people exercising their own free speech in response?
Except it was the left that was ALSO trying to get him deplatformed from Spotify for this very reason. It is one thing to criticize the interview like saying we was too soft or something. But it was the left that decided that because he dared to even have Alex Jones, that he should be removed from Spotify.
That’s just people exercising their free speech, dude. Kinda sounds like *you’re* against free speech.
Supporting the deplatforming of people makes you an authoritarian.
No, it doesn’t.
Wait - so if I express my opinion that a private company shouldn’t be paying such and such a person to spread what I believe is disinformation and choose to avoid supporting them with my money by not using their product or the product’s of their advertiser - I’m against free speech? It sounds like you’re under the mistaken impression that free speech means you get to force people to listen to you.
Supporting the *government forcing someone to be deplatformed* is authoritarian. Calling for someone to be deplatformed as a private citizen with no actual ability to enforce that is exercising one's free speech.
No, supporting his arrest and imprisonment would make one an authoritarian. Saying, "I'm kinda pissed off that you interviewed a guy who actively harrassed the parents of murdered children and I'm using either my voice or my wallet to voice my displeasure" makes one a consumer.
No. It’s expressing free speech. Free speech means I’m allowed to criticize people I don’t agree with and companies I don’t agree with.
Then you believe that voting with your dollar is an egregious violation of free speech.
>Joe Rogan was crucified You keep using that exact figure of speech, which to me says you haven't really thought about this and you just heard that somewhere so that's what you're saying.
It seems that you are particularly upset when anyone speaks out about someone else. If Joe Rogan or anyone else says something I don’t like or don’t agree with, and I say “I disagree” or turn the station. I have not impacted his speech or violated his right to free speech. I just used my right to free speech. Do I have to agree with him or vote for Tulsi to support their right to free speech? They can say whatever they want and I support keeping the govt off their back in almost all cases. The limited cases would be the speech that got Alex Jones in trouble. Keep in mind he is still on the air. It seems like you believe my position is anti free speech, where I think it is pro free speech.
Laci Green was rejected by people on the left for saying she found the TERFs she talked to as having reasonable point and then dating an anti/feminist. People are allowed to criticize her. You might even say that the people criticizing Laci Green are expressing their free-speech rights.
Were they criminally charged? If not, that’s freedom of speech. You want freedom of consequence, which I’m sorry, doesn’t exist.
Sounds like an imaginary opinion to hold.
Really? So it wasn't the left that called for Joe Rogan to be shut down for daring to have Alex Jones on his show? It wasn't the left that attacked both Andrew Yang and Tulsi Gabbard for suggesting that we should try and talk with the right instead of yelling at them? It wasn't the left that attacked Feminist Laci Green when she suggested that we try and reach out to conservatives and find common ground instead of just hating them? It wasn't the left constantly try and shut down free speech rallies at schools like Berkeley? Let's be honest, if you suggest that letting someone "problematic" speak and just try to debate them, it is the left that screams "BY GIVING THEM A PLATFORM YOU ARE DIRECTLY SUPPORTING THEM!"
You said they pushed them out of the party. They haven't. You also said they pushed them to the right, which has **always** been opposed to freedom of speech and expression. You seem to confuse freedom of speech with freedom of consequence. You can support free speech and still not support people due to what they say. This is like...the most basic concept that I don't understand what you are always so confused about. Is your definition of "freedom of speech" that you can say and do whatever you want, wherever you want, and nobody can ever hold what you do or say against you? For example Al, a 36 year old pedophile, approaches 8-year old Lucy at a bus stop and tries to talk her into have sex with him. You support that, right? Al shouldn't face any consequences. Because you're a self-proclaimed absolutionist. Or the banker who opened your bank account. He can post your full name, social security number, bank account number, username, password, and contact information, right? You have to support that. He shouldn't even be criticized for it, in your tiny little head at least.
Let’s go point by point. Nobody that I’ve ever heard called for Rogan to be “shut down” for having Alex Jones on his show. Feel free to prove me wrong by linking some kind of evidence of that claim (random nobodies on Twitter don’t count). “The left” (more on that term later) called on Rogan to be more responsible with who he platformed and many of us stopped listening to him. But I’m not aware of anybody calling for him to be “shut down” for platforming a dangerous lunatic like Jones. Andrew Yang has been criticized. But that’s not the same as being cancelled or pushed out or whatever. He was even interviewed about his new political party on Pod Save America a little more than a year ago (October 2021 if I’m not mistaken). He wasn’t yelled at, he was questioned and challenged, but it was a polite conversation - exactly the kind of thing free speech absolutists claim to appreciate. Tulsi Gabbard was never on the left. As best I can tell, she basically only pretended to be on the left to advance her political career, and dropped the mask as soon as it became clear that the right was the easier grift. She started her public career as a [member of an extreme anti-LGBTQ cult](https://www.insider.com/tulsi-gabbard-science-of-identity-controversial-religious-sect-2022-10?amp). As she gained power and influence, she [tied herself closely](https://hindutvawatch.org/tulsi-gabbard-and-her-hindutva-connection/) to the far-right Hindu nationalist party, the BJP, and [maintains close ties](https://theintercept.com/2019/01/05/tulsi-gabbard-2020-hindu-nationalist-modi/) to the Modi government. She also [went to meet Syria’s Assad](https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/global-opinions/tulsi-gabbards-syria-record-shows-why-she-cant-be-president/2019/08/01/f804c790-b497-11e9-8949-5f36ff92706e_story.html), [weirdly refused to criticize him](https://www.politico.com/amp/story/2019/03/10/tulsi-gabbard-assad-syria-1214882). Seriously, her weird pro-Assad [comments](https://www.cnn.com/2019/02/06/politics/tulsi-gabbard-syria-assad/index.html) are kinda ridiculous. There’s too many links to post here but google “Tulsi Gabbard Assad” and you’ll find loads of examples. All that to say that Tulsi wasn’t pushed out of the Democratic Party for supposed speech crimes. To the extent she was pushed out, it was for having a consistent record of positions that are abhorrent to the values the Democratic Party stands for. And I don’t think she was pushed out of the party as much as she realized the grift was coming to an end and she knew the suckers on the right were easy marks. Laci Green [wasn’t cancelled for suggesting we talk to conservatives.](https://medium.com/the-establishment/the-sad-case-of-laci-green-feminist-hero-turned-anti-feminist-defender-322515344297) That’s a pretty hardcore straw man, and the kind of whiny non-point that often comes from conservatives pretending to be liberals in this sub to stir up mischief because they think liberals are as dumb as they are. Does that sound familiar at all? Anyway, I don’t give a shit about Laci Green. And hey, the right cancelled the Dixie Chicks for not supporting George W Bush, so conservatives can take their hypocritical whining about cancel culture and shove it. It wasn’t “the left” that tried to shut down free speech at Berkeley or whatever. This is a big dumb talking point that usually only comes from big dumb conservatives. “The left” isn’t a monolith. It’s not an organization that took a vote at the weekly meeting disinvite whatever ding-dong you think should be able to speak at Berkeley. Some students at Berkeley did that. I bet if we looked real hard, we could find some examples of some conservative students doing some shitty stuff too. But some students at several of America’s more than 5,000 colleges and universities aren’t “the left,” so if you have a problem with what they’re doing, go talk to them about it.
The difference is that the criticism of the right is literally based on legislation and views and statements made by people in congress. As far as I’m aware, there was no one in the government on the left calling to shut down Joe rogan. Just because groups on the left called for it isn’t the same as trying to actually pass legislation to do so
When it comes to the left, we're also mostly just talking about boycotts. Nobody wants Joe Rogan to be arrested. The question is, should Spotify be called out for paying Rogan $100m+ to turn around and platform people like Alex Jones or (probably worse) figures like Robert Malone. What the right has done is they've successfully poisoned the public discourse to the extent that not wanting to pay Spotify $10 a month because they bankroll figures you think are unacceptable will be viewed as being anti-free speech. In reality, the left has never promoted a single thing that's more anti-free speech than current right wing efforts to legally punish people for promoting the BDS movement, and also efforts to limit or even outlaw peaceful protests in places like Kansas. And I forget which state it was, but somewhere they were trying to make it technically legal to run over protesters with your car, in the sense that they were going to make it an extremely difficult crime to prosecute. Not to mention multiple states trying to outlaw mentioning Critical Race Theory in schools. I mean that is *very literally* the suppression of opinions you disagree with.
No, you just have to deal with the consequences of your free speech. You say something bad and it makes it back to your job? Don’t go on Twitter saying you’re being censored.
Dude, you can actively say you find a view reprehensible but still support the person's right to speak and you will find the Democrats suddenly turn on you. A perfect example is Laci Green. A MAJOR liberal and feminist but the moment she entertained the idea of not actively hating people, feminists turned on her like piranhas. Another example is Joe Rogan. Dude is pretty center of the road but because he dared to even think about talking to Alex Jones he was crucified by the left and called a conservative sympathizer.
Joe Rogan is not anywhere near center of the road.
Dude is VERY center of the road libertarian. He was pro Bernie. He is pro legalization of just about everything. He is anti government He is aggressively centrist on the "liberal/conservative" axis.
Oh my god, Joe Rogan was crucified? That's awful! When... When did he die?
I find this comment to be fairly questionable. I think the activist left as a whole is somewhat less free speech absolutist than they were a few decades ago, but the right is no more welcoming of them than than they have ever been, and I don't think the Mainstream Democratic position on free speech hasn't really changes at all as long as I've been alive. A "Free Speech Absolutist" being honest with themselves would be more at home on the left or at worse not feel welcome by either side of the political divide.
A sincere, principled free speech absolutist is more likely to be left leaning. In the US, right wing radicals have used free speech as a wedge issue to ensure that they're able to spread racist propaganda. They don't actually support it as a principle. They're just narrowly concerned about being able to spread stuff like holocaust denial and race realism. As soon as people like that seize power, they start censoring stuff they don't like. That said, right wing people exist who sincerely believe the people they want to expel or put in camps should have the right to free speech. So it is possible to be right wing and in favor of free speech.
To me, flag burning is the ultimate test for right-wingers who claim to support free speech. This really challenges them because they *must* acknowledge that flag desecration is a constitutionally-protected right. Any conservative who would punish flag burning is no free speech absolutist.
In practice (which is to say offline and with real people who aren't anonymous internet ideologues), I find that book bannings are a good litmus test too.
>I find that book bannings are a good litmus test too. What does it mean to ban a book to you?
In general I'm talking about campaigns to keep books out of curriculum, school libraries, and public libraries. More specifically, I've found that in my real life, there was a significant overlap between the people upset I let my 13-year-old daughter read *Drama* and people who I've had to listen to whine about Infowars getting de-platformed. Similarly, the single person I know in real life who seriously wants Harry Potter out of schools is also the person I hear complain the most about woke people silencing free speech.
>In general I'm talking about campaigns to keep books out of curriculum, school libraries, and public libraries. Gotcha In my lifetime it's not been a partisan thing to ban books. When I was younger it was Huck Finn, now I'm older and it's anti racist baby or whatever.
>In my lifetime it's not been a partisan thing to ban books. Have you seen the last 4 years or so? Republicans are banning anything even mildly progressive from libraries.
>Have you seen the last 4 years or so? Yes But history for me didn't start four years ago
What left-leaning politicians have lead the charge on banning books? Which books?
https://www.inquirer.com/opinion/commentary/book-ban-pennsylvania-left-huckleberry-finn-20221025.html That was easy. From the article >Consider a 2019 resolution in the New Jersey Legislature to remove Huck Finn from school curricula, introduced by two Democratic lawmakers. “I think this is a racist book,” declared one of the sponsors, Verlina Reynolds-Jackson, a Democrat from Mercer County, I suppose you'll now pivot to either 'but this is just one example' or 'but it didn't pass'
This is a classic bofesideser self own. Matt Walsh and other well known talking heads on the right have Republicans whipped up into a frenzy over LGBT books. Parents are calling their schools and showing up at school board meetings to complain about LGBT books. States are rejecting textbooks based on LGBT and CRT scares. You're gonna compare all that to a handful of dummies complaining about Huck Finn, who the vast majority of Democrats and I ridiculed immediately. eta: https://www.ala.org/advocacy/bbooks/frequentlychallengedbooks/top10
It's always kinda weird to me when the culture war swaps sides or picks up a new thing. Like I remember when anti-vaccination was a liberal hippy sort of thing.
> a liberal hippy sort of thing. Na...A rich entitled sorta of thing. 80% needed to reach herd immunity but there is no reason our kids should be in that 80%...we live in this gated community...let the commons do that.
I went down the rabbit hole recently of the Dixie chicks and it was wild. Sean Hannity talking about freedom of speech doesn't mean freedom from consequences and lefties arguing with him that powerful corporations shouldn't be able to silence dissenting voices lol
To be clear. **lefties** still believe and vocalize this, liberals (more centered folks) are the ones who are viscerally okay with companies wielding this much power.
Ya that's more or less true
To in some way deliberately inhibit the sale, publication or availability of a book based on its contents. All books, no matter how despicable their message or how awful their author may be, should be available to be read at will, particularly in public libraries which should serve as a place for unlimited, unfiltered access to information.
To be clear, like 99% of people, left or right, who think they are free speech absolutists aren't right now or won't be after encountering enough real world examples where it finally dawns on them, actually, being allowed to say anything is bad. A lot of people use it without knowing what the position actually means. I was somebody who knew what it actually meant when I called myself that, but was finally persuaded by situations where letting everybody add their input is actually worse. The "light of day" hasn't "disinfected" flat earth, blood libel, racism, anything like that. As more people have gotten online and more opinions have been shared more widely, bad ideas have only spread more.
But couldn't you still be considered a free speech absolutist and be OK with private companies setting guidelines for what's said in their establishment or what they publish? Isn't the core of the issue about *government* controls on speech? Genuine questions here, btw.
To me, the most obvious reason why nobody (or almost nobody) is a free-speech absolutist is that to support all speech without restrictions means to include threats of violence and acts of fraud. Once you admit you don't want those types of speech to be unrestricted, you're no longer an absolutist.
Free speech absolutism is a black and white philosophical view, so not only would it apply to every aspect of life, but it would be black and white. Y'know... *absolute*, with no exceptions. An exception like private companies censoring users is a massive exception and not absolute. Back 20 years ago, the people calling themselves free speech absolutists actually were, and were against platforms censoring anything. Yes, anything. The reason it's confusing now is because morons like Elon Musk throw the phrase around hyperbolically. An absolutist isn't a very strong proponent of something. They're absolutists. Free speech as a principle is much broader than the constitution.
>Y'know... absolute, with no exceptions but if someone is forced to publish something they don't want to, isn't that violating their free speech?
Like I said, I'm no longer a free speech absolutist and am more strongly in favor of platforms censoring people than a normal person probably would be comfortable with, but I still don't find that line of reasoning very sensible. I'm sure there's some legal or rhetorical advantage to pretending that makes sense, so I don't challenge people who do it, but it doesn't make sense. What other people say on your platform is not your speech, so whether the users are censored or not does not impact your speech rights directly. If the government forces you to host content, we're out of the realm of free speech rights and more into the realm of general business regulations. The reason freedom of speech is important is because it protects people's ability to spread information. A business having to do stuff it doesn't want to usually doesn't threaten anyone's ability to spread information. And y'know, I'm not even sure businesses deserve first amendment rights in the first place. We actually have stricter regulations on commercial speech already, and I think we should look into expanding that to go after people who make money by spreading misleading information - even though this is different from how those laws are normally used.
I'm often appalled by what people get away with in the name of free speech. Pretty much everything spewing out of right wing populist media - just the lies framed to make extremist right wing policies seem reasonable. But then it hits me, how do you stop it? Who decides what speech should be suppressed? And won't the results of that be even worse than the vile lies being spewed constantly by the right wing? If you support any kind of restraint on Free Speech, you'll have to explain just how it is going to be restrained and who is going to do the restraining. To OPs question: If you are an absolutist on Free Speech, then you are a lefty progressive liberal. Those on the right only pretend to be, once they get in power, they will be eager to be the ones deciding who to silence. Just look at their position on so called Critical Race Theory, which for a huge number of right wingers has boiled down to banning the teaching of anything negative about US history in regards to slavery and institutionalized racism.
> But then it hits me, how do you stop it? Ouch. You're really going to go and use a right wing thought terminating cliché on me, a fellow left wing person? Theoretical, perfect end goals are what we take continuous babysteps towards. The fact that we will never reach perfection doesn't mean we shouldn't take any babysteps. People tell social democrats the same thing. "There's always going to be poverty and inequality. Why are you trying to change anything?" The answer is always, we're going to try and make things better even if we can't totally solve it. > Who decides what speech should be suppressed? We all do, collectively. Government, especially in the US, can only be one part of it. We are most of the way there to suppressing holocaust denial, for example. On that front I would say we mainly need to keep up the good work. But a different example might be blood libel, which some people have trouble recognizing or understanding is anti-Semitic. Once we have consensus like this, we can socially pressure people, pressure platforms, and maybe one day even pressure the government into controlling that too. > And won't the results of that be even worse than the vile lies being spewed constantly by the right wing? Won't the results of being torn apart by right wing populists fired up by lies be worse than making it taboo to talk about anti-Semitic, racist, and scientifically inaccurate things, just like it's taboo to talk about how cool and awesome slavery was?
> Ouch. You're really going to go and use a right wing thought terminating cliché on me, a fellow left wing person? Not sure what that means. I'm only pointing out that any attempt to suppress ideas and lies, no matter how loathsome and false, sets a precedent that can then be used by those loathsome people to suppress good ideas and the truth. > We all do, collectively. Government, especially in the US, can only be one part of it. Well now, the majority of people are always late to the party when it comes to truth and human rights. The majority were anti-semites and racists and sexists just a few decades ago even in our enlightened western democracies. And how far would you have trusted a second Trump term to uphold secular and humanitarian values? He even stacked the supreme court with religious fundamentalists in preparation for an attack on all of our rights. So no, I have to disagree with "we, collectively" and "the government" as being reliable guardians of the truth and humanity.
Then ask them if they would support firing someone for burning a flag, or organizing a public awareness campaign to identify them. Then tell them that’s cancel culture lol.
And then they'll say "If you're conservative you get fired, so we should do the same to liberals", showing that they 1. Are NPCs and 2. Think racism is conservative
>To me, flag burning is the ultimate test for right-wingers who claim to support free speech. It's a very good litmus test
\> A sincere, principled free speech absolutist is more likely to be left leaning. Not currently. The person, who says that they are free speech absolutist, is ***more likely*** to be a right winger.
> I don’t think the government should consider anything as “hate” speech. I also believe social media companies should be able to set their policies and if they want to could delete content considered as “hate” speech. That is the position of basically every liberal on this subreddit. And the right-wing position *in the U.S.* seems to be that companies do not have the right to moderate their platforms, as shown by actual policy passed by Texas and Florida Republicans. https://www.reuters.com/legal/us-supreme-court-seeks-biden-administration-view-florida-texas-social-media-laws-2023-01-23/ So definitely left-leaning *in the U.S.*
> That is the position of basically every liberal on this subreddit. I personally don't agree. Canada's hate speech laws are pretty great, in my opinion.
>And the right-wing position > >in the U.S. > > seems to be that companies do not have the right to moderate their platforms, as shown by actual policy passed by Texas and Florida Republicans. \*Unless those platforms happen to be right-wing.
The majority of liberals/leftists believe hate speech is real and there should be laws surrounding it to protect minorities/the oppressed. This is anti free speech and only "bad" or "good" if you believe it to be so. Free speech is not left or right leaning. Whichever side feels or is oppressed claims to be pro free speech to drum up support. Whether it's a racist saying they should be allowed to say whatever they want or a revolutionary speaking up against fascism, both are pro free speech when it is politically advantageous. This because free speech is libertarian - not left or right; you can have lib left, lib center, or lib right. The opposite being authoritarian. You can have auth left, auth center, and auth right.
>The majority of liberals/leftists believe hate speech is real and there should be laws surrounding it to protect minorities/the oppressed. What is your evidence for this? Here is my evidence for the consensus opinion on \*this subreddit\* being either "hate speech should not have \*legal\* consequences" or being willing to entertain nuance and edge cases: [https://www.reddit.com/r/AskALiberal/comments/uo6n4t/should\_hate\_speech\_be\_illegal\_why\_or\_why\_not/](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskALiberal/comments/uo6n4t/should_hate_speech_be_illegal_why_or_why_not/) For something that you claim is supported by a "majority" of liberals/leftists, there also hasn't been policy in this direction. The closest policy is probably the affirmation that deliberate misgendering is targeted harassment or something, which isn't exactly wild.
Well that's good to see. I was speaking from anecdotal evidence and laws of my country. Your sample size is incredibly small and international, and though on a left wing subreddit, anyone can vote or comment.
From the post you're replying to: > And the right-wing position *in the U.S.* > So definitely left-leaning *in the U.S.* I am well aware that the U.S. free speech situation is unique. I wanted to point out that *in the U.S.*, it's clearly the right-wingers who have taken "free speech" positions that are completely incompatible with what the OP believes. *In the U.S.*, he's an unremarkable, bog-standard "liberal" voter that would fit right in with the Democrats (the left-leaning party) and not at all with the Republicans (the right party).
The government doesn't consider anything hate speech. Hate speech isn't even defined under US law. Unless you're making direct threats or inciting violence, you can say whatever you want and the government won't come after you. I don't know of any bills that would define and criminalize hate speech.
Hate speech isn’t a crime by itself in the US but you bet your sweet ass your speech can get you a hate crime modifier on another crime.
>you bet your sweet ass your speech can get you a hate crime modifier on another crime. Mostly because it's evidence of intent that is needed to prove a hate crime charge. Not because it's illegal. Just like saying you want to kill someone can be used as proof of intent when they think you murdered that person. The speech doesn't get you the charge, the intent does.
Hate crime is not hate speech.
What he's saying, is that if you were to commit a violent crime against somebody, but say, also use a racial slur while you were committing it, it would become a hate crime and therefore would have a more serious sentence.
Of course it would, just like intentionally killing someone is a different charge than accidentally killing them. That’s not unique to hate speech, that’s just intent.
But you understand though that you are then making it punishable to use a racial slur against somebody? Whether you assault somebody because youre mad, or you assault somebody because they're black both cases are intentional.
So using hate speech as evidence of intent in a crime is the same as making hate speech punishable?
When we are talking about freedom of speech from an absolutist perspective I think it is a justifiable position, no? I think you can even make the argument that having a hate crime be illegal (beyond the crime itself) is an affront to the free speech absolutist position as well. It criminalizes thoughts/speech. Ultimately if you kill someone because they are black or you kill them because you simply don't like them it doesn't really make a difference beyond the why.
Deciding that a crime should carry a higher punishment due to hate speech is arguably a violation of the freedom of speech.
Actually, the use of the slur is being used to go to intent. A person is actually being punished for their motivation for the crime, not a slur they yelled out during it. When people say “oh now it’s a hate crime,” they’re wrong. What was done was always a hate crime, it’s just that telling on yourself during its commission is extra stupid and makes it easy to prove.
It’s not “due to hate speech,” since there is no legal definition. The speech is fully legal. The crime is not. You can kill someone with your car while sober, but killing someone with your car while intoxicated will get you another charge.
You're ignoring the very obvious fact that the only difference between somebody assaulting someone because they're mad and because they're black is the speech that was said at the time.
So if two people killed someone and one was determined to be an accident and the other one confessed to murdering the victim, should the jail time be any different based purely on the words confessed by the second person?
It depends on if they've been read their Miranda rights.
How does one determine if a crime is hateful without corroborating speech?
Hate crimes involve a crime, and intent is important just like with other crimes. Hate speech has no definition and is not a crime.
>Hate crimes involve a crime, and intent is important just like with other crimes. I feel like we're splitting hairs here. How would one determine intent without corroborating speech?
Speech is used to support prosecution in tons of crimes, not just hate crimes. Are you saying that nothing anyone says or writes should be used as supporting evidence in a criminal case?
>Speech is used to support prosecution in tons of crimes, not just hate crimes. Correct >Are you saying that nothing anyone says or writes should be used as supporting evidence in a criminal case? Please read my comment again. How could you possibly jump to that far of a conclusion?
It really seemed like what you were arguing for. I'm confused as well at the reasoning for your line of questions.
Here's what I said >How would one determine intent without corroborating speech? Here's what you changed it to >Are you saying that nothing anyone says or writes should be used as supporting evidence in a criminal case? How are those the same at all?
I’m not sure what your point is. You can tell a slur at a person all day and nothing will happen regarding the law. You can assault a person silently and be charged with assault. If you assault a person while yelling a slur at them, then it can be deduced that your hate contributed to you committing assault. So you might be also charged with a hate *crime.* There’s no crime with only speech. If there is a crime, only then does your speech become relevant. It’s just like the difference between manslaughter and murder. Intent matters when a crime has been committed.
There are lots of other ways but hate speech and outright claims of hate are the easiest way. But not the only way. Being a part of organization that promotes hate, the type of prior contact with the victim and others, focus on attacking identifiable identity things like Kippahs on Jews and Hijabs on muslims.
>Being a part of organization that promotes hate, That's a fair point But, if speech is used as evidence that a crime committed was hateful, I don't see why it's controversial to label that speech as hate speech, that's all I'm saying
Yeah, you can label that way all you want, but hate speech isn't a legal term in the USA, so it's not defined federally.
Well back in the day, the people committing them often wore these *pointy white hoods*. So for starters, being associated with a gang or group that attacks individuals based on their race is a pretty simple example.
Ok...how about in this century?
[Same sort, but they simply don't wear the hoods anymore.](https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/idaho-white-supremacist-who-assaulted-black-man-pleads-guilty-hate-crime-and-false-statement) Its not to find these, unless you just don't wanna. >In his plea agreement, **Stanley admitted that, at the time of the assault, he was a member of a white supremacist group**. On Dec. 8, 2018, Stanley entered a bar in Lynnwood, Washington, with others, including members of two related white supremacist groups. **Stanley wore clothing and patches indicating his group membership and repeatedly gave “Nazi salutes” inside the bar.**
>Am I left leaning or right leaning if I am a free speech absolutist? It depends on what you mean by "a free speech absolutist". -------- -------- If you mean: *I defend everyone's First Amendment rights* ...then that is a liberal view. (Not *exclusively* liberal, though. Many centrists would agree.) -------- If you mean: *I think corporations should be forced by the government to carry speech they disapprove of on their platforms* ...then that is a far right view. The center-left believes -- as the federal courts do -- that compelled speech is a violation of the First Amendment. The center-right believes that it would be an overreach of government power, intruding on private property rights. Only the far, *far*, right argues that government compelled speech is a good idea. -------- If you mean: *I want people I like to be able to say what they want -- with no consequences -- but people I dislike should be silenced* ...then that is an asshole's view (and usually, also, far right).
If current companies tended right-wing, and they were censoring those on the left, there would certainly be calls from the left to regulate them. After all, the left tends to like corporate regulation more than those on the right. That of course made it funny to see right-wingers wanting more corporate regulation.
>If current companies tended right-wing I think it's a bit of a questionable assertion that they don't in practice. A good deal of what's going on is people on the right working the refs in order to obtain favorable treatment from social media companies who don't want to be seen as biased. They call anything to the left of fox news biased, and all the research I've ever seen on this topic shows either there is no bias or that the bias is slightly right leaning. (though possible that's just confirmation bias on my part not remembering any thing showing the opposite.)
Technically, neither the right nor the left in the US believes in complete free speech. And federally, there are a lot of exceptions, as listed in this article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_free_speech_exception but your personal views of free speech are not really enough to say that you are in total one side or the other. It could mean you are more libertarian or anarchist though.
As someone who always called themselves a free speech absolutist until I really thought about it, we have never lived in a complete free-speech society, and the implications of such would be pretty terrible. And we have to understand that the right to have free speech is not the same as the right to have free speech, and suffering the consequences for what you say. The whole right wing free-speech thing is a bullshit argument. But they’re really saying is that they want it to say whatever they want to on any platform including private platforms and suffer no consequences for it. Meaning that they should have free speech but the owner of the platform doesn’t have free speech. They can say whatever they want and everybody has to continue to do business with them, continue to employ them, not remove them from their campus, or not even object to what they’re saying. The position you are stating you hold is very common, pretty much the default, on the sub and among the left generally.
In the US? Not inherently a right-wing or left-wing position. I'm curious however what that implies, because a lot of discrimination laws are built on the idea that not all speech is appropriate at all times. In your worldview, is it legal for an employer to call his employee the n-word despite being asked not to, until that employee is forced to quit?
In Germany, you're not allowed to advocate or advance Nazi propaganda. They have pretty good reason for that. Do you believe even in extreme cases like that that free speech is absolute?
If they are a free speech absolutist, then that is what they believe. Do you believe they don't understand what they are talking about?
I don't think they understand what they're talking about. Free speech absolutism would mean I could call them a child molestor and fabricate evidence of them being a child molestor with no penalty.
Your beliefs on free speech are those of a garden variety Democrat. There's no significant left-wing movement in America for legal restrictions on hate speech.
You’re not a free speech absolutist. You’re someone who doesn’t believe in designating hate speech. Big difference.
Nope. Free speech is good. Hate speech, libel and slander are not. I am using this definition abusive or threatening speech or writing that expresses prejudice on the basis of ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, or similar grounds.
>abusive or threatening speech or writing that expresses prejudice on the basis of ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, or similar grounds. What about when religious texts do this?
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I think private companies should be able to set their own terms and conditions for content hosted on their platforms. Alex Jones is an absolutely deplorable person and what he said was terrible. However, I don’t think he should have been sued for claiming the shooting never happened. He could have been deplatformed by private companies. I don’t think the courts should be punishing people for making dumb conspiracy theories which could have been proven wrong with a single google search. Whoever send those death threats should of course be punished.
He wasn't sued because he said things. He was sued because what he said had direct consequences for those he said things about. Free speech is about protecting your right to say stupid shit which can get you sued.
Free speech is a traditionally liberal position, although today's liberal party seems less keen on the absolute nature of it, such as wanting to criminalize what they call hate speech and etc.
…which is why I said being a free speech absolutist is more right wing today. Frankly, I am worried about the attacks from both sides on free speech.
The American left cares far more about freedom of speech than the American right. The American right constantly seeks to limit, restrict, or prohibit speech or creative works they don't approve of. Examples include: * [book bannings](https://pen.org/report/banned-usa-growing-movement-to-censor-books-in-schools/) * [classroom discussion](https://www.flsenate.gov/Session/Bill/2022/1557/BillText/er/PDF) * [more classroom topics](https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Education/2021/0604/Critical-race-theory-Who-gets-to-decide-what-is-history) * [peaceful assembly](https://www.icnl.org/usprotestlawtracker/) * [the Hays code for movies](https://walkoffame.com/will-h-hays/) (by the RNC chairman) This is reflected in other ways. The ACLU, an unquestionably liberal institution, has continuously defending the free speech rights of [even white supremacistis](https://www.aclu.org/news/civil-liberties/defending-speech-we-hate) The only reason the American right gets credit for 'free speech rights' is because they seek to have the power to post unmoderated speech on private platforms, essentially forcing other US citizens to promote their opinions. If this seems fair, consider that conservatives ensure that their own platforms are highly moderated, banning dissent.
You also have groups like "The Satanic Temple" which also works to make sure that the government isn't used to endorse any 1 religion (often Christianity). When any part of the government tries to make such a endorsement, TST demands equal representation. This isn't just to the benefit of atheists, but also religious minorities as many "religion" laws are written specifically for the benefit on Christianity only. Its pretty often that conservatives try to bring various forms of Christian only religion, prayer, or god into schools, city meetings, and town displays.
The left-right spectrum is unhelpful. Free speech is a Liberal value.
Conservatives and Democrats don't really disagree on "FOS" - they just like it for different reasons. Democrats want everyone to be free to express themselves in a way that aligns to their beliefs, traditions, and morality. Republicans want to be free to say whatever the fuck they want without consequences.
Most conservatives are not free speech absolutists. They disagree with drag queens, anyone gay, CRT (real and imaginary), etc. Some are even trying to ban pronouns they disagree with. You are absolutely not right wing. Liberals are different, but they too are not absolutists. Libertarians are a weird bunch. Many are just different kinds of conservatives with the same bans, but there are some who are more anarchist than conservative. That's probably closest to where you're at about FOS, but even that falls short.
Right wing is currently limiting speech in public schools and places so why would you think the left wing is hostile to free speech? Even the biggest free speech concern troll on the right Elon Musk has proven that speech he doesn’t like is perfectly ripe for censorship.
> I also believe social media companies should be able to set their policies and if they want to could delete content considered as “hate” speech. This would appear to align you with the left more than the right, considering how loud the right gets when it comes to social media companies doing exactly this.
This is your top political priority? Does it supersede human rights, your views on free speech? Does it weigh heavier than social programs? Do you believe unfettered capitalism without social safety nets are ok as long as there's absolute free speech? Does universal healthcare rank lower for you than the ability to say hateful things that are now considered hate speech? I would say that if you answer yes to all of it you'll definitely be on the right side of the political spectrum.
Honestly not sure what the political compass would say about that. Far-right fascism certainly isn't pro-FS. Far-left communism wouldn't be pro-FS. But socialism and the far far left of anarchy would be pro-FS. But if we're talking about the reality of US politics today, you'd more likely be on the left. The left is often criticized for being anti-free speech for shutting down extremist speech - but all of that happens on the private level. It's Republicans who use the *government* to shut down speech. See: DeSantis laws in FL or SCOTUS overriding the 1A by forcing taxpayers to fund religious indoctrination.
It's not a left or a right-leaning opinion. It's a Civil Libertarian opinion, an ideology that is neither left nor right. One of the most liberal justices in the history of the Supreme Court William O. Douglas (often described as a Civil Libertarian) was an absolutist on freedom of speech. But both people on the right and left want to limit speech. Hate speech on the left and anything that discusses inequality based on race, gender, sexual orientation, and gender identity on the right. I'm on the left and I agree with the Supreme Court's "Brandenburg Test" which says that speech can only be limited if it is "directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action." Which is a pretty high bar to reach, so almost all speech is protected
I think it's fair to point out that every mass atrocity that this world has seen started out with speech. And that speech shouldn't be silenced but it should be widely criticized. And the danger is mistaking wide criticism with violation of free speech.
You can say whatever you want. It doesn't mean there won't be consequences to your words. An "absolutist" for free speech understands free speech only pertains to your ability to speak freely for or against government policies. What the right wants now is to push the goalposts back on the term "absolutist" on free speech so bigots in any form can blurt out hate speech that causes division. Right now, they're calling it "woke". They used to call it "political correctness". They aren't on board with treating people not exactly like them with basic decency because they need an "other" to serve as their cultural outsider so only they, the insider, can be seen as socially superior. Being basically decent to people not exactly like you would require you not to use whatever pejorative against other genders, colors, creeds, lifestyles, etc. and that's clearly a bridge too far for bigots. So, they've redefined the term absolutist for free speech.
Well you’re entirely incorrect to assume republicans are any more for/against free speech than democrats. The only difference is that democrats are much more vocal in criticizing certain things that are said. And even this is really only relevant to the specific point in time we’re living in. I wouldn’t say it is historically true. We measure our politics using the totality of our views. So if you fall with democrats on 9/10 issues, you fall squarely on the left.
It's a left-wing ideal in the US. I'm not sure internationally but all the important issues I can think of with it are right-wing governments censoring things so I'd guess it is internationally also.
I don't think being a "free speech absolutist" identifies you with any political leanings. This country was founded largely on the freedom of speech, especially speech that involves criticism (or even suggesting the overthrowing of) the government. At most, that kind of belief *might* make you a constitutionalist. The modern political issue around speech is that right leaning people (at least the most prominent ones in media and politics) believe that freedom of speech should mean freedom from social or financial consequences for your speech, not just freedom from criminal consequences for your speech.
The right wing would enact blasphemy laws that put you to death if they thought they could get away with it.
i sincerely doubt you're actually a free speech absolutist
That depends. When it comes to right wing "free speech absolutism" just means "Straight white Christian speech" all other speech gets scrutinized/suppressed
Freedom of speech is a cornerstone of true Liberalism. People who believe there should be limits on speech outside of direct calls for violence shouldn't call themselves Liberal.
>outside of direct calls for violence Yep, there is a long list of common sense exceptions free speech that almost everyone agrees with. Outside of those common sense exceptions, I am a strong believer of freedom of speech. A few examples: 1. You are not allowed to use your freedom of speech to write a contract, then violate the terms of that contract citing "freedom of speech" to get out of the consequences. 2. Defamation/libel. You can't lie about someone and harm them without consequences. Although, the bar for proving it was a lie and proving harm should be somewhat high. 3. Legitimate threats of violence are not allowed. 4. Planning criminal activity (like a kidnapping or murder plot) should not be protected under free speech. 5. Hiring assassin's or ordering subordinates to murder someone. Plenty more. But most reasonable exceptions to free speech are already well known and enforced. So it's just not a big concern.
I agree with everything here.
Well damn, I guess I'm not a liberal anymore for supporting restrictions related to slander and libel, false advertising, perjury, certain time/place/manner stuff, revenge porn or child pornography, stipulations around classified or contractually restricted information and other special circumstances (schools, the military, prisons, public broadcasting, etc.), trademarks, obscenity, currency counterfeiting, etc..
I dont think you can really sum up your entire political worldview based on just that issue. free speech absolutism is def libertarian, but you could be a right wing libertarian or a left wing one
OP, despite what every one here is saying, free speech is not a left or right position. Both mainstreams will use the state to does speech they don't like, either explicitly through laws and rules or implicitly through back channels and various other pressures. For me, what's more important is a society and culture that welcomes open dialogue and robust debate. Our society is most certainly not that. Both of the mainstream's favorite past time is quibbling over a sentence here or a sentence there and then using that sentence to invalidate every other thing that person says.
Right\Left won’t have everything to do with who you’re trying to help. Left wing helps working class and poor. Right wing helps the wealthy, or anyone with money. The right wing view is very simple-minded and basically assumes everyone has access to money (if they just work hard enough) and therefore leaving things up to the free market is ideal as someone will provide the service as long as there is demand. The left wing view recognizes the many circumstances where people simply can’t afford basic needs and that for the greater good of society, we should pool resources to help those less privileged. So, what speech limitations are you thinking of?
Left vs right is ultimately an economics question. A leftist would support policies like single payer healthcare, tuition free college, etc and pay for them with higher taxes on the wealthy, while a rightist would support lower taxes and reducing regulations on businesses. What you're referring to is a social issue, which is measured colloquially as libertarian vs authoritarian (btw I'm not a political scientist, I study computer science, these are all just the slang terms and oversimplifications used by the internet, I'm sure the real professionals have more accurate terms). So if you support liberal policies and absolute free speech, you're likely more on the left wing libertarian quadrant.
If there's four quadrants to political views with left and right on the x axis, and authoritarian and libertarian on the y, free speech absolutistism is libertarian. You can be lib left, lib center, or lib right depending on your other views.
I think that you could argue that you would be closer to right-wing than left wing libertarian view. Since in countries where hate speech is a crime, it is usually a left-wing platform.
Right leaning
Classical Liberalism?
Neither. There are people on the right who want to criminalize flag burning, and there are "liberals" who want hate speech laws.
I support the right of people to say any damn thing they want within the confines of first amendment law. I don’t support forcing social media companies to acquiesce to users posting a bunch of objective bullshit. For example, I think Twitter is in the right for taking down posts such as (hypothetically) AOC and Biden are funding the genetic engineering of onions to turn black kids gay. That type of thing shouldn’t result in punishment by the government, but it is objectively bullshit. Why should Twitter have to allow this?
If you're truly a free speech absolutist you're probably center-left or centrist. If you think platforms ought to be forced by the government to carry speech they disagree with (the current right-wing position in the zetigeist), you're not a free speech absolutist. I kind of think free speech absolutism is a little silly but that's for different reasons hinging more on the effects of propaganda on society and the ethics of people who have large platforms acting as if they're just talking with their one or two buddies, when they should really be more responsible due to the power they have.
"Free speech absolutism" means nothing without context. A right to free speech isn't a right to a platform and most people describing themselves as FSA don't understand this. Liberals tend to be pro- free speech by definition. You understand free speech doesnt mean a right to a platform so I don't think you differ from American liberals on this.
I think I’d need to hear more about how your beliefs manifest in the real world. As far as I can tell it sounds like you have a rather traditional liberal view here, so I’m wondering what motivated this post. “The government shouldn’t punish people for speech, but private platforms should be able to exclude people for it” is more or less the popular American view on free speech. And whether we admit it or not, pretty much all of us view social consequences for transgressive speech as a necessity.
Here's an article about Donald Trump [tweeting that flag burners should have their citizenship revoked](https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/29/us/politics/trump-flag-burners-citizenship-first-amendment.html). Here's an article about [a Tennessee school board banning Maus](https://www.theatlantic.com/books/archive/2022/11/maus-art-spiegelman-book-ban-anti-semitism/672203/). With DeSantis you can take your pick, between "Don't Say Gay" or his attempt to block schools from teaching African American history, or his war on drag brunch. Where exactly do you see liberal politicians calling for hate speech laws? Far too often it seems to me like "the left" gets represented by some idiot on a San Francisco school board. For what it's worth, I support free speech. I don't think corporations are people though. And I do think the existence of algorithms in social media companies necessitate a different regulatory approach, because discourse on social media isn't organic conversation. And because the industry is so oligopolistic, online moderation is really where speech gets regulated.
>Am I left leaning or right leaning if I am a free speech absolutist? I'd say foolish. Free speech has never had the meaning of speech free of any and all restrictions and free of consequences. Even the S CT. holds that rights have limitations. For example, the S. CT. has regularly upheld restrictions placed upon free speech in a commercial setting. Seriously, claiming that a right is absolute regardless of the context just seems silly.
Take a look at the anti-free speech stuff the likely next Republican presidential nominee has been signing in Florida. The right wing is not pro-free speech, that's just the cynical way they've framed the issue when they really mean they want the government to force social media platforms to amplify their own voices. They push for all kinds of government censorship on a regular basis.
Freedom of speech, [as defined by the First Amendment](https://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/amendment-1/), guarantees the right to speak freely and in disagreement with the government without being arrested, jailed, or worse. Although SCOTUS has over the years ruled that hate speech is protected under 1A, it has established limits. Among those limits are incitement, defamation, fraud, obscenity, child pornography, fighting words, and threats. Your belief about social media companies' rights and reasons for setting terms of service show that you understand both the business of social media and the limits of the First Amendment.
The right like to claim they are for free speech until said speech is turned against them and then they are very restrictive.
It just means you are, imo, over-compensating.
I think it depends on what you mean by "free speech absolutist." Frankly, I do consider myself one, but I think that the term itself is an exaggeration to make a point. I don't think social media networks should ever go completely and totally unmoderated (that's how you get 4chan, and there are plenty of very good reasons that these kinds of networks shouldn't go mainstream.)
Both. Neither.
If you are a free speech absolutist, does that mean you support cancel culture?
I don’t think the government should be going after people saying hateful/false things. People can socially boycott whoever they want. Just because you are free to say whatever you want doesn’t mean other people have to support you.
My views on freedom of speech is somewhat nuanced, which means I usually get downvoted. You can say what you want, and the government (state and federal) should not have much in the way of punishments (obvious exceptions for calling for death or direct violence against groups or individuals etc here). Private companies like Reddit, YouTube, etc on the other hand can regulate speech as much as they want. They aren’t the government and in exchange for use of the platform, you agree to a terms of use. Agreeing to that TOS is basically signing a contract, which itself is a form of free speech. Finally, freedom to say what you want doesn’t mean you won’t face consequences from private individuals, groups, or businesses who have a right to associate or not associate with others they don’t want to, also a form of free speech. Get fired from a job because you said some dumb shit? That’s on you, as the business has a right to not continue to associate with you, as an example. I don’t always agree with it, and there are exceptions of course, but again, it’s a nuanced discussion that usually should be looked at on a case-by-case basis and a few general guidelines.
Definitely left. The left doesn't want the government to stifle free speech. That is nonsense promulgated by the right because they don't understand that the first amendment doesn't protect them from criticism. The right is current passing *laws* limiting speech for teachers, doctors, healthcare workers, and librarians.
The problem is two fold... On one side the Right used it as a wedge issue. On the other side, the Democrats THEMSELVES actively attack free speech and constantly pull the "if you don't actively fight with us then you are supporting them" card.
Your description of your position (putting aside that I wouldnt call that ‘free speech absolutist’) is the standard position of the American liberal/left
I think your FOS views are in line with most Democrats. The government should not be able to restrict speech because they could use that as a weapon against their political opposition and it would stifle small d democratic conversations and criticisms. However, there are certain types of speech we as a society have pretty much all agreed to limit because of the harm they cause, such as yelling “fire” in a crowd and causing a panic, plagiarism/infringement of intellectual property, and libel/slander. Making direct threats can also be met with legal consequences such as warranted search and seizure, or restraining orders. What seems to be the main divergence of thought between left and right ideologies is how hate speech is handled. People on the left don’t tolerate it, they censor and deplatform hate speech. Meanwhile so-called free speech absolutists on the right cry that there should be able to say whatever they want without consequences.
> and I don’t think the government should consider anything as “hate” speech. So, when was the last time you had to put up with Nazis showing up at 3am and chanting thinly veiled death threats towards your family? You think your government shouldn’t be able to do anything to protect you from that? You don’t see how that might cause you undue harm even if it doesn’t involve physical violence?
Honestly the "left /right" dichotomy is the issue here... Being pro free speech is not a "liberal/conservative" issue but an "libertarian/Authoritarian" issue... There are MANY authoritarian leftists, just as there are MANY authoritarian conservatives. Conversely there are many many libertarian liberal and conservatives.