Many good things have already been said, but I want to add one thing.
If you want an coherent framework that allows free speech but no hate speech, look at consequential ethics. As opposed to rule based ethics (free speech absolutionists).
I.e. we want to maximize the amount of common knowledge (flow of information or free speech) because it leads to the best results over time. If we want to maximize the flow of information, we cannot be absolutionists, because that puts us in a local minimum (failing to optimize properly). In other words, we need to restrict certain free speech to achieve maximum effective free speech.
This thread alone is showing me how divisive this question is for a lot of reasons. Just the meta-question of “what’s the definition of ‘free speech’ in this context?” on its own makes it a shitshow to answer, let alone the rest of it.
It says in the name. ‘Free’, ‘speech’. If I can say it, you can’t silence it. Anything more restricted is not ‘free’.
If that’s what it means to you, then no, “hate speech”, whatever it may be, is included by definition. There is no ambiguity. But that’s a pretty inflexible answer that doesn’t satisfy.
Well that’s a stupid and useless definition of “free speech”. Obviously some things that can be spoken aren’t ‘free speech’, because they aren’t constructive, they’re not good-faith conversational, they are a form of harm, etc."
Sure. Under that definition, it’s totally possible.
But congratulations, by restricting what ‘free speech’ is in any way whatsoever, you’ve invented an implicit judge who rules what is and is not free speech. (And, likely as well, rules what is and is not “hate speech”.) That only kicks the can down the road to the question of, “Is this a fair judge?” And now we are back in the shitshow where we began, we just painted the walls a new color.
“Free speech” as Americans in particular are so worked up about is a nickname given to one of the amendments of their constitution, which is a clause about disallowing the government from punishing anyone for their speech. Any implication of rights relating to speech outside of this context is a gross misunderstanding.
If that’s the definition you’re going with, then yes, obviously it’s possible, because that’s where many of us are at right now and have been at for ages. That makes it a rather nothingburger of an answer because it dodges the implicit question of whether we should uphold “free speech” as a principle outside of this context, whatever that may mean.
The way I see it, the two answers on the extreme ends are cop-outs that don’t actually help anyone, and any answer that exists in the middle just becomes politics. Is it possible to allow “free speech” and simultaneously stop “hate speech”? Yes, with adequate definitions of both. Will any solution that does so be satisfactory to a critical mass of people, randomly selected from all people? Haha no.
you’ve invented an implicit judge who rules what is and is not free speech
Imagine that. Living in the real world, you are constantly faced with ethical choices.
Even the American constitution contains exceptions. There’s a whole wiki article on the subject!
Others have brought up the inherent tension in the idea, but there are some potential avenues that try to avoid the pitfalls of the issue. For example, distributed moderation, where you subscribe to other users’ moderation actions, allows anyone to post something while also allowing anyone to ignore them based on the moderation actions of those that they trust. If you combine this with global moderation of outright illegal content and mandatory tagging of NSFW/NSFL posts, which are generally considered to be necessary or at least understandable restrictions, then you have a somewhat workable system. You could argue that a platform that allows community moderators to curate their own communities also allows free speech and blocks hate speech, but that only works if the mods are always fair, which… yeah, no lol
You are describing Bluesky’s moderation system.
It depends on whether the user in question is bothered by seeing hateful things or by the existence of hateful speech. The latter tends to seek out and share hate speech (to complain about it) where the former would rather block it out completely. Both of these users may believe they want the same thing
Ooh good insight!
Free speech as in, the freedom to express valid political speech and criticize the current government? Sure. Easy.
Free speech as in, the ability to say whatever the hell you want, including threatening, harassing, or inciting hatred and genocide against people? No. No you cannot.
I think it may be possible if you understand a difference between the right to speak and the right to be heard.
Ie the right to say something doesn’t create an obligation in others to hear it, nor to hear you in the future.
If I stand up on a milk crate in the middle of a city park to preach the glory of closed source operating systems, it doesn’t infringe my right to free speech if someone posts a sign that says “Microsoft shill ahead” and offers earplugs at the park entrance. People can choose to believe the sign or not.
A social media platform could automate the signs and earplugs. By allowing users to set thresholds of the discourse acceptable to them on different topics, and the platform could evaluate (through data analysis or crowd sourced feedback) whether comments and/or commenters met that threshold.
I think this would largely stop people from experiencing hatespeech, (one they had their thresholds appropriately dialed in) and disincentivize hatespeech without actually infringing anybody’s right to say whatever they want.
There would definitely be challenges though.
If a person wants to be protected from experiencing hatespeech they need to empower some-one/thing to censor media for them which is a risk.
Properly evaluating content for hatespeech/ otherwise objectionable speech is difficult. Upvotes and downvotes are an attempt to do this in a very coarse way. That/this system assumes that all users have a shared view of what content is worth seeing on a given topic and that all votes are equally credible. In a small community of people, with similar values, that aren’t trying to manipulate the system, it’s a reasonable approach. It doesn’t scale that well.
I think you misunderstand the point of hate speech laws, it’s not to not hear it, its because people rightly recognize that spreading ideas in itself can be dangerous given how flawed human beings are and how some ideas can incite people towards violence.
The idea that all ideas are harmless and spreading them to others has no effect is flat out divorced from reality.
Spreading the idea that others are less than human and deserve to die is an act of violence in itself, just a cowardly one, one step divorced from action. But one that should still be illegal in itself. It’s the difference between ignoring Nazis and hoping they go away and going out and punching them in the teeth.
Yeah, only one of those tactics works.
I support robust enforcement of anti hate speech laws. In fact I’ve reported hate speech/ hatecrime to the police before.
We’re not talking about laws, we’re talking about social media platform policies.
Social media platforms connect people from regions with different hatespeech laws so " enforcing hatespeech laws" is impossible to do consistently.
If users engage in crimes using the platform they are subject to the laws that they are subject to.
I don’t care that it’s legal to advocate for genocide where a preacher is located, or at the corporation’s preferred jurisdiction, I don’t want my son reading it.
The question was: is there a way a platform can be totally free speech and stop hate speech. I think the answer is “kinda”
Says who? Who decided that free speech got an asterisk? Who makes and enforces the rules and limitations?
In general it’s the wider community that decides all that.
There are consequences in holding and sharing views that are disagreeable with the community in which people share them.
People are free to air those thoughts, but others are also free in shunning them for those thoughts.
Another comment explained it pretty nicely:
But you can’t have [a platform with absolute free speech] while allowing for hate speech either because hate speech silences the voices of its target.
It’s basically the tolerance paradox but with free speech.
Hate speech doesn’t silence non hate speech.
The owners and operators of the platform.
Yes you effing can. It’s called block button.
It’s pretty exhausting having to block everyone all the time though. That’s one small benefit with Lemmy. You can block instances.
I mean, yeah. But also not everyone.
It worked well for so long because it is a good solution. Allow users to block and let everything fly as long as it’s not a personal attack. The community will relatively quickly sort itself out.
Sadly, today there are exception to block button working >:(
Edit: Hell. isn’t BlueSky pretty much riding this today? People made blocklists and give fuck all about the less nice side of the site. And people who are intersted can keep seeing stuff.
Yes. There is no contradiction. Freedom or speech is the freedom to discuss or criticise as part of a discussion, in particular the freedom to criticize those in power without the fear of repercussion. Discuss sensitive topics to all your hearts desire. Hate speech does not intend to discuss anything. Hate speech is there to target, to threaten, to belittle, to dehumanise, to attack. Hate speech is violence.
Edit; As usual with this topic “free speech absolutists” emerge, often accompanied by elaborate use of language and a thesaurus. And as usual they are not really into the entire “free speech” as in “freedom of discussion”, but rather “freedom of consequences” for themselves. Well boo hoo, ain’t that a pearl clutching shame of a slippery slope to the strawman of “who are the real Nazis” when not supporting your freedom of unadulterated hatred to run free into the world.
It’s essentially a practical application of the paradox of tolerance. And like with that one, the paradox goes away when the offending party breaks the social contract.
"If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them.
In this formulation, I do not imply, for instance, that we should always suppress the utterance of intolerant philosophies; as long as we can counter them by rational argument and keep them in check by public opinion, suppression would certainly be most unwise." - Karl Popper, The Open Society and Its Enemies (1945)
Everyone seems to forget the second paragraph of the quote.
Also a contract by definition cannot be valid and signed under duress thus the social contract is an invalid assertion. At the end of the day only thing that actually matters is Darwinian evaluation.
Everyone seems to forget the second paragraph of the quote.
No. The “as long as” does the necessary lifting there. Far-right rhetoric is a denial of reality and of any argument with a complete lack of shame or self-reflection, therefor this second part doesn’t apply.
There was a time when we thought rational argumentation and logic were good enough to convince, but that has been dead for a few decades, and the US just paid that price.
signed under duress
I didn’t ask to be bornthe point is if you don’t sign the contract you’re not protected by it and you get no benefit, that’s not duress. If you sign it but break it, you pay. No one is forcing you to sign, but if you don’t, you can fuck off.I took “counter them” to imply countering their actions amd thus their indoctrination of new people (as to keep them as a minority).
Far-right rhetoric is a denial of reality and of any argument with a complete lack of shame or self-reflection
Name a single intolerant utterancr that does not fulfill this criterion. Ur welcome to critisize karl popers arguments if u wish. But if u do so u cannot use the same argument to support ur arguments and argue against the second half of that very argument. Classic case of cakeism.
The election in the us has very little to do with extremism or utterance of intoletant ideology. Trump got the same or very simmillar amount of votes as he did last time. Harris lost millions compared to biden. Most people dont read the news and thus are completly uneducated on politics. They hear a sound byte like “make america great again” go “fuck i cant afford bread id like to be great again when i could afford to eat” and vote based on that. The average person is an idiot and half of all people are dumber than that.
the point is if you don’t sign the contract you’re not protected by it and you get no benefit, that’s not duress.
Ur forgetting the most important law of all. Its not illegal if u dont get caught. As long as u dont get caught u can go around breaking the social contract as much ad u want and still get the benifits and protections of it. Eg every billionare or corporation ever.
If you sign it but break it, you pay. No one is forcing you to sign, but if you don’t, you can fuck off.
No. If u sign it and break it and get caught breaking it and cant pay ur way out then u pay. The social contract is a tool the government and elites use to derive legitimacy while also allowing them and their buddies to neglect holding up their end.
I would be careful with phrases like, “there is no contradiction.” There is a comprehensible tension between free speech as the ability for anyone to say what they wish, and a prohibition on hate speech as a prohibition on saying specific things. Denying that risks damaging one’s credibility because it can appear that we are merely refusing to acknowledge that tension.
I argue it’s better to admit these tensions. And that’s not an admission that the arguments for prohibition of hate speech are weak, but it is an admission that as real people in the real world, we can never have the comfort of a tension-free, contradiction-free theory for anything of significance.
That’s free speech with an asterisk. It also means you have this big gray area and someone policing and deciding what is and isn’t hate speech, so you won’t ever see completely free speech thoughts from everyone.
You can’t have your cake, and eat it too. Having rules against what can be said or talked about means you’re in a bubble, for better or worse.
Oh no, policing. Like in everything else in a functioning society because people do things they are not supposed to. You’re free to drive wherever but you’re but free to ram your car into pedestrians. Oh my god the oppression.
Yes but one is words, and the other has a guaranteed tangible impact? I don’t think thats a viable analogy
Somebody calling up your family and workplace and tell them you’ve been stealing for your drug habit are also just words.
Well how do u define hate speach? Is misgendering someone hate speach or free speach? Is burning a flag hate speach or free speach? Is calling for the death of elon musk hate speach or free speach?
Its impossible to define hate and free speach in a way everyone agrees with ans thus impossible to have both symultaniously for everyone.
The fediverse is beautiful cos u can choose an instance that defines both in a manner u choose fit or even spin up ur own server and do it however u want.
Misgendering on purpose, hate speech. “On purpose” might be a fuzzy term, but patterns of behaviour will usually make it obvious. Burning a flag, free speech. Calling for death of Elon Musk, hate speech. Calling him out on his bullshit, free speech.
Not actually that hard.
Misgendering on purpose, hate speech.
So ur definition of hate speach can include something that is purly a subjective experience of being offended? The subjective is by definition whatever one claims it to be. Thus i could claim that subjectively u speaking at all is hate speach? Ohh and dont try claiming its not subjective cos i dont give a fuck if u misgender me (my existance is a counter example of any possible proof).
And here we are disagreeing about what is free/hate speach thus both symultaniously is impossible.
Not imposible if you’re wrong. Which you are.
What about demeaning others is subjective? Do you fear that victimhood will be wielded as a weapon? I believe a good percentage of cases of hate speech are very obvious, and the rest should be handled by good old societal norms and shaming.
Do you feel bad when others correct you?
Didnt u rwad what i wrote?
U don’t have a right not to be offended that is simply the cost of free expression. Its only demeaning if u let it be demeaning i dont give a fuck if u misgender me therefore i have a different subjective experience of the same act therfore it is subjective (i am a counter example to any possible proof, as i said).
The subjective is what u decide it is therefore i can subjectively claim u opening ur mouth is demeaning and thus u should be silenced.
What is wrong with this logic other than u dont like it? U havnt corrected me cos u havnt addressed my argument or points all uve done is make the assertion that missgendering is demeaning for ur subjective opinion.
I’ll grant that there’s no acceptable way to programmatically evaluate some text and infer from the text alone if it’s hate speech.
That’s why I stick to a manual process to evaluate. For example, if enough people report you for misgendering others, and you do not adjust your behaviour it eventuallt becomes hate speech. But a human has to go and analyze this, it is difficult, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t do it.
But your argument is that it’s impossible, and I just illustrated that it isn’t impossible. I do agree that it’s hard. But that’s just life for you. Nuance takes time and effort, as most worthwhile things do.
U missing my point entirely. How can a subjective experience of offence be hatespeach?
The method for evaluation is irrelevant. My argument is that a subjective experience can be anything by anyone.
My argument is not that its impossible to determine but thats since we disagree its impossible to reconcile hate speach and free speach for everyone our definitions of the 2 are different. Thus this answers ops question with a firm no its impossible. This conversion itself is proof. We are the counter example thus the alternative cannot be true. Proof by contradiction.
Look into the of Paradox of Tolerance.
Definitely read the article, but TL;DR It’s acceptable (and necessary) to shut down Nazis.
Freedom is always relative. No one has absolute freedom. No matter how much I want to go without sleep, I can’t do that. No matter how much I don’t like gravity, it limits me (or liberates me, depending on my view). I have the freedom to jump off a highrise, but will that freedom actually do me good? Absolute freedom is not necessarily a good thing as it can harm myself and others.
Therefore free speech doesn’t mean I can say whatever I want. It means that I have the right to express my opinions publicly. But there must be restrictions to balance the right to free speech with the need to protect individuals and society from harm (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_speech).
Edit: formatting
Depends on what you mean by “free speech”. If you mean absolute free speech in the sense that all voices are present and heard, then no, because it blocks out the hateful voices. But you can’t have that while allowing for hate speech either because hate speech silences the voices of its target. So no such thing can exist. If you want a platform with “free speech”, you need to decide who gets the freedom and how much of it. There has to be a limit somewhere, whether it’s explicitly set or not.
Yes, free speech doesn’t mean necessarily free speech absolutism
I like to remind *free speech absolutists" that child porn is technically a type of speech.
It’s inherently exploitative due to the age difference. Free speech doesn’t cover violating someone else’s rights like that.
Absolutely right, but there is still a limit on speech. Every right must be balanced against other rights
It depends on how much of an absolutist you want to be. No government allows absolute freedom of speech. Libel, slander, and incitement of violence are all forms of speech that are illegal in basically every country. If your platform refuses to remove these forms of speech, you would be protecting what is generally not considered to be free speech, and it’s possible you could even be held legally liable for allowing that kind of speech to spread on your platform.
If you decide not to be a free speech absolutist, and instead define free speech as legal speech, then things get complicated. In the U.S., the Supreme Court has held multiple times that hate speech is protected under the First Amendment, so censoring hate speech would mean your platform wasn’t allowing all forms of, “free speech.” However, the U.S. has much broader protections on speech than most Western countries, and hate speech is illegal in much of Europe.
So, TL:DR; free speech is a sliding scale, and many countries wouldn’t consider hate speech to be protected form of speech. By those standards, you could have a platform that censors hate speech but still maintains what is considered free speech. However, by other countries’ standards, you would be censoring legal speech.
The best way to think about this is https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/moderation-is-different-from-censorship
Lots of places already exclude hate speech from free speech, for an example I am familiar with (because I live there), Australia has a right to freedom of expression and opinion but does not protect speech that incites discrimination, among other things. As far as I’m concerned that is still a right to free speech, not the least because hate speech inherently limits the voice of its victims.
No
No, because free speech includes all speech. Even the speech we disagree with.
We don’t technically have free speech in the US either. You can’t make death threats or shout “Fire!” in a crowded movie theater.
Thats because once discussion on something concludes, you generally make it law.
“Murder is bad” is very much agreed on to be a good thing. To me it is only logical for the next step to be “verbally encouraging or excusing murder is bad”, which might not need to be law, but it should at least not be state backed.
There is a difference between being allowed to say whatever you think, and having the state guarantee that whatever you have to say is actually heard.
Not being heard or listened to, is not a violation of free speech. Being removed or “silenced” online or even physically in public, is not a violation of your free speech.
Free speech is to be free to say whatever you like, but it does not protect you from what other citizens do in response.
If you insult someone, and they punch you in the face in response, your free speech was not violated.
“Hate speech” is a category of “opinion” that is obviously harmful that anyone thinking straight should immediately dismiss it. The problems have started because thanks to the internet, those “opinions” can now reach all the people who aren’t thinking straight.
For those who do identify hate speech easily, to protect those who don’t, by at least not propagating it (social media, government) is the bare minimum of what they can do.
Taking away the megaphone if someone is using it to encourage murder is not a violation of free speech. And it’s necessary.
With a megaphone, you don’t need to be right. You just need to be heard by enough people that the tiny percentage that will believe whatever you say, is a large enough group to be dangerous.
The free speech absolutism is useless in practice.
It will probably never be free speech happening. It’s always been free speech with exceptions.
I think one measure of society is how strictly it imposes some kind of penalty for people that use speech that crosses those boundaries. No one should get away with racist comments and not be penalized in some way. Not necessarily legal penalties, I mean including smaller stuff, like limiting the pool of potential friends. There’s a lot of range with these.
Another measure would have to do with what the penalties even are.
