…but did you ask them?
But they are negative consequences. And they do have a chilling effect. Which was all I said. I don’t think the statement you quoted was false at all, and I’d appreciate a retraction.
Do you think all speech should be free of all consequences?
Should the folks that support the genocide in Gaza be free of all consequences for their speech?
…of course not.
I’m making an argument that the constitution doesn’t protect you from negative consequences. That obviously goes both ways. I’m not arguing there shouldn’t be consequences, or that there should be consequences. Just that there is. And that can and does have a chilling effect on free speech, and that while in Europe there are legislative limits on free speech in America it just takes a very different form.
No, they didn’t face any consequences that would have a “chilling effect" for speech, although they were threatened with such for joining the encampment. And they talked a LOT about the topic, both publicly and privately. And no, i didn’t say, "are you afraid to say that”, but yes, I’m certain i would have heard privately if they were.
I will not retract my statement.
Now, things might get worse. In fact, it really looks like they might. And some of those friends aren’t US citizens, and the impact on non-citizens is chilling enough that i bought a burner phone for travel, because i didn’t want some random inspection to turn up some of the private things non-citizens have said.
But
Isn’t true. I know a couple of them. Unless you count as “negative consequences" the utter frustration of their speech having absolutely zero impact. Which is pretty real, but again, is really not what “freedom of speech" is about.
…that isn’t the question, though. The question was did they face any negative consequences. Its a different thing.
But you haven’t asked them. So you don’t really know. This means the statement I quoted is false.
So your right to free speech was horrendously infringed by SDMB doing this? Just as much as those people arrested in the UK for saying nice things about Palestine Action?
In order to protect you from this horrible infringement of the right to free speech, the government should intervene and force the SDMB to allow you to use the word Nakba, on pain of fines or shutting down the website?
And naturally people who feel the same way about anti-trans sentiments on SDMB would have the same power to protect their right to deadname people on the site.
Of course the current US government can be entirely trusted to equally enforce your rights to pro-palestinian sentiments on message boards and their rights to anti-trans sentiments on message boards, in unbiased manner.
That right there is why it’s a really good thing that the bill of rights “only* protects you from the government infringing your right to free speech.
…where did I say that?
I said negative consequences.
Nope.
Nope.
Nope.
The current US government IS policing pro-Palestinian sentiment by conditioning funding to universities. By the Attorney General going after a student for some things they said and a slap.
But it won’t protect you from negative consequences. And those negative consequences can limit, can chill speech.
For example when Columbia University suspended, expelled or withheld degrees from students the intent was to suppress further protest. And its worked.
When students were doxxed for signing a statement it was an attempt to intimidate students into withdrawing their names…and it worked.
It was all entirely legal and constitutional. Which is my point. I’m not arguing it should be illegal. That isn’t the point. The point is “free speech” isn’t that free when this sort of thing is allowed.
Nigel “free speech” Farage got a good reaming out in Congress yesterday.
It’s bizarre that smarmy, smirking ass is polling so well in the U.K.
Agreed. He lied about Brexit, which has done more than almost anything to screw the country. He does nothing for his constituents – no-one in his party can be arsed to do their actual jobs. They don’t even show up to vote on issues like rape enquiries, that he has used for years to fire up the base.
The reason that he still polls so well, is depressingly similar to the MAGA playbook.
The media loves him because he gets clicks. He gets waaay more exposure than any other party leader, possibly more even than the prime minister.
And, stupidly, both the Tories, and Labour, have decided the best way to fight Farage is to be him. I have not seen either of them call him out for the lies. Question the premises of anything he’s said. Starmer and Badenoch both talk about the “real concerns about immigration” which have actually been largely manufactured.
He may possibly have gone too far this time. Trump is hated in the UK, even by most of those that agree with him on “anti-woke” or whatever. And what was Farage even doing there if it wasn’t purely self-promotion over the good of the country?
But, as I say, he’s screwed the country before and got away with it.
What did you expect? You saw the same thing happen to many posters before you. This is why if you want free speech, you have to defend even the unpopular opinions. Because one day the unpopular opinion will be yours.
It’s also one reason free speech is about culture and attitudes more than laws. Because the threat of social and employment consequences is just as effective as legal ones on most people. The other reasons are that without the belief in free speech as a principle, a government can make laws limiting it, as we are seeing in the UK, or a leader can get around or simply ignore the law protecting it, as we see in the US. The only things stopping them are their own belief in these principles, and protests and pushback from voters.
The above is true, but I’m sure the only reason Reform are polling so well is disillusionment with the mainstream parties, mostly with the Tories. I don’t think it’s anything Farage has done, except, as you say, get publicity.
If they ever do get elected, it’s going to be an absolute shit-show.
Maybe. Depends how many people are paying attention.
Indeed. The response by Jamie raskin was excellent, but how many people logging on to gbnews or the telegraph will hear it?
I approve this message (but, yes, the Guardian preaches to the converted)
I don’t understand your point. Those social consequences were also speech. Are you saying you favor “freedom of speech except you can’t call out horrible opinions or wrong facts”?
I happen to mostly agree with Banquet_Bear, but the people who attacked him felt his opinions were horrible and that he was promoting falsehoods. How would a “culture of free speech” have helped him? Arguably, it’s the culture of free speech on this board that hurt him.
“One of the negative consequences of free speech is that people might disagree with me, and that makes me physically ill,” is certainly a take.
Not to mention, the things he was accusing others of doing were just as if not more heinous than the things he was in return accused of. Someone on my end of the argument who is more sensitive could easily make the same exact argument as BanquetBear: that his accusations of genocide make them physically ill. I doubt that BanquetBear would consider that a good reason to change his tune.
I wish that this was the first or the only time that I’d heard such an argument.
Exactly. Neither side can “win” this on a pro-free-speech argument. Both are equally exercising their freedom of speech. Sometimes people disagree about really important things.
When one of the forms that disagreement takes comes in actively wishing for your death, openly, on this board, I think it’s a fairly understandable take.
Some of the Anti-Zionist rhetoric is indeed pretty heinous, but if I felt physically ill every time someone on the Internet called for my death, I’d be physically ill 24/7.
Funny, I don’t recall any “Anti-Zionist rhetoric” proponent here wishing for about the death of any fellow dopers. So, no, that 3rd grade “I know you are, but what am I” reversal tactic is not gonna work.
Only the pro-Israeli posters here do that - as you well know.