The end of free speech?

[Ori37]

We seem to be moving towards a culture of criticism which is so prevalent it's threatening to end freedom of speech and honest opinion. You can't post anything on Social Media without your comments being immediately perceived as purposefully hostile, and individuals are torn to shreds for the most innocuous things.

Jokes or light-hearted attempts at humour are taken literally. You only have to read a few threads on MN for examples. People are so busy troll-hunting they forget why they signed up in the first place.

Are people really so easily offended and quick to anger? If not, what is this new and emerging trend to attack and publicly denounce people who have no obvious malintent whatsoever? Where is the critical objectiveness, the desire for good, honest debate? It seems to have been replaced by the immediate desire to apportion blame for imagined insults.

What concerns me is the root cause for this hostile culture. People seem angry, and dissatisfied on a deep and collective level. There's an article in the news today about public figures who have signed an open letter denouncing the restriction of debate. It makes interesting reading.

Individuals can easily lose their jobs for saying something on Social Media that is taken the wrong way and wasn't meant to cause offence, academics and professionals are called into disciplinaries for quoting the wrong thing, places like MN which should be a safe space for a lot of parents to sound out their concerns and give advice are increasingly under threat by this hostile culture.

Whatever you say, however you say it, whoever you are, there will be someone who takes your comments personally, or reads bad intent where none was meant - despite the fact that in the majority of instances, it's blatantly clear that comments are innocent.

I'm all for a healthy, robust debate, and don't mind being disagreed with. But nowadays people forget the "debate" part and replace it with personal attacks, and things very quickly escalate into petty insults being flung. Original requests for help are ignored, the focus slips onto a perceived insult, hostile exchanges are undertaken, more individuals jump on the bandwagon and there it is, the demise of free speech.

AIBU to wonder where this will end up? What do you think? (No insults please! I'm not insulting anybody.)

I saw the letter on the BBC website and agreed with it.

I don’t think Free Speech is coming to an end but I think social media is slightly changing how free speech/hate speech/the right to not be offended is being considered.

There is no such thing as "free" speech

Free speech has never meant free of consequences. You have always been free to say whatever you want but that means other people are free to react however they want. It's simple, really

For free speech to come to an end, people would need to be prevented from speaking. What you are describing - a willingness to criticise things people have said - seems to me an expansion of debate rather than a shutting down?

@GreytExpectations

Yes point taken. But the reactions people have nowadays are disproportionate to what is being said in a lot of cases. It seems to be a case of lynch-mobbing without consideration, because people seem determined to read insult and grievance where there is none. I fear it will take effect; people will not feel able to freely speak their thoughts or opinions for fear of being mobbed.

But the reactions people have nowadays are disproportionate to what is being said in a lot of cases.

Could you provide any examples of what you have seen that the reactions are disproportionate to what's been said?

I would say the threats JK Rowling received are disproportionate.

Any form of threats are not reasoned discussion and Twitter is full of them.
I don’t think it’s a new thing but social media has clearly increased exposure

I don't agree with what JK Rowling or Baroness Nicholson have said but I think it is wrong to punish someone for having an opinion that if different from you.

It's interesting that JK Rowling is not expressing a right-wing opinion, she is expressing a radical feminist opinion. A lot of this trying to get people sacked from their jobs or removed from positions is left-on-left aggression.

Nobody wants to know if an opinion is true or not. Did the Israeli security services teach the American police to restrain people by kneeling on their necks? Probably not. I think Keir Starmer is probably correct in saying that it's an antisemitic conspiracy theory.

Why did Ms Peake not check the facts? Why didn't the publisher? Why didn't Long-Bailey? If something's untrue say it's untrue not you're not allowed to say that.

I agree OP that criticism abounds in British culture and in-depth debate is being lost.

I have lived in Scandinavian cultures where this isn't the case, and now back in the UK the difference is painful. Scandinavians prefer debate and in places like Norway, this is particularly so. For instance, in the workplace, whenever a decision has to be made, EVERYONE from the CEO to the cleaner is asked for their input, even if some staff have very little understanding of the issue under consideration. When everyone has had their say, all points of view are taken into account and finally the decision made. No-one is shouted down for an opposing view, all viewpoints are valid. It makes decisions take longer but everyone is "heard" and all are valid.

This behaviour spills over into their everyday life and into their use of social media. It makes for good, straight-forward discussion without "unwritten rules" and "taboos" which are part and parcel of UK society. The Scandinavian culture is more open, more accepting and less aggressive because of all this.

In comparison, there is so much hatred, aggression and constant criticism in UK debates whether on TV, in the press or social media, it makes me despair of our society. We could learn from other countries, it doesn't have to be this way....

@WanderingMilly That's interesting. I have heard it said that in Sweden anyone who doesn't agree with mass migration from countries like Syria is labelled a racist. Do you think that's true?

Many people think that trolling should stop but they want to continue to "call out" racists and sexists. It seems they want to stop trolling for people who believe the same as them, but they want to be free to continue to make false accusations of racism and sexism.

No, I don’t think this has any effect on free speech. It’s just a social media / wile bubble thing. If you’re not on social media you wouldn’t even know about it.

Very very few people “cancelled” or “called out” on social media experience any real world repercussions and many actually find that being Twitter-cancelled gives them a huge career boost and access to a much wider platform to air their views.

Look at Laurence Fox. He’s complained that a few people on Twitter expressing an opinion that he’s racist is a violation of his free speech (which it isn’t - if anything he’s violating their free speech by claiming no one is allowed a negative opinion about him) yet he’s gone from being a jobbing TV actor to being on the front cover of the Sunday Times and being given massive media platforms just because he made “controversial” comments.

Ditto Piers Morgan, Katie Hopkins, endless Fox News types. Making racist or anti-“woke” comments is a legitimate career and path to fame now. It’s hard to square watching people given enormous media platforms just because they’ve said something racist with the idea free speech is dying.

If anything I’m worried that the number of people screeching “free speech” to prevent anyone expressing a negative opinion of them, are the ones who are actually harming free speech.

I would say the threats JK Rowling received are disproportionate.

Agreed. You can have a different opinion to hers and still be respectful. You often find on here that people just don't know how to respond maturely to differing opinions and instead try to "shut down" people they don't agree with. It's sad, we have lost the culture of debating

Free speech has never meant free of consequences

Seems to me that freedom of speech requires freedom from consequences. Being put into prison (or worse) is a consequence of speech in many countries). Luckily we are protected from that here in the uk. But we are definitely seeing an increase in people facing quite severe consequences for having certain opinions. If a consequence of speaking on a certain subject is that you lose your livelihood or have a mark against your name on a police record for a “non-crime” then that is not really freedom of speech. There are degrees of consequence and I am wondering where the people who argue “not free from consequence” draw the line?

@narrowboatgirl It seems that people are having media platforms taken away from them. Nigel Farage is no longer a radio presenter, Katie Hopkins is no longer on twitter. I don't agree with their views, by the way.

Seems to me that freedom of speech requires freedom from consequences. Being put into prison (or worse) is a consequence of speech in many countries).

Consequences don't always have to be legal. For example, here anyone is free to vocalise their racist views but their employer is also free to fire them for that as it may break company guidelines. The example shows how legally you have freedom of speech but we have never had full freedom of consequences only freedom of legal consequences. Personally, I like it this way. I don't think racists, sexists, homophobes ect should expect to say whatever they want and not face social or professional consequences.

@GreytExpectations

You asked for an example GreytExpectations - I mentioned MN in my first post as an example where this personal attack-culture is rife. Also I agree with what you've just said here - and the loss of the ability to properly hold a mature debate is a consequence of this new trend:

You often find on here that people just don't know how to respond maturely to differing opinions and instead try to "shut down" people they don't agree with. It's sad, we have lost the culture of debating

I kind of feel the same. PC gone too far. We don’t do, say, think much anymore for fear of getting in bothers!

It's good that people see how toxic mumsnet can be regarding different opinions. However, what I don't like are the amount of people who have been moaning about lack of free speech when being called out for racist comments. That's just not on as I don't see racism as just a "different opinion"

Free speech should be sacrosanct. People can say what they like and others can argue against them it is up to people to critically analyse the validity of what people are saying and either agree with them or coherently ague against them.

The problem is people are intellectually lazy, mob mentality based on manipulative And emotive sound bites Is acceptable. People can’t step away and look at what they are saying and doing, clamouring to be part of the mob incase the mob moves against them.

Individuality is fucked! Intellectual and scientific progress is corralled within walls built with pseudo righteousness.

Diversity, rather than being an all embracing philosophy is marked by increasing segregation without a hint of irony.

We celebrate a secular society and fail to recognise we’ve just substituted one set of gods for other gods with their own theology and the same requirement to adhere, unthinkingly and unquestionably to The new commandments With threats of (at least social) death as any historical enforcement of a controlling religion.

But people are happy to just go along with whatever they’re told because they are lazy.

We will end up with free thought and speech hidden, contained in ciphers, limited to small groups.

So much for the progress of society.

Freedom of speech 'officially' just means you don't get arrested or imprisoned for your words.

It does not mean you are free from criticism due to your words

However, people are getting threatened, abused and losing their jobs for their words. Anything where someone else disagrees, is often framed as 'hate' and met with threats and abuse and mass pile-ons. I recently saw a makeup reviewer receive intense abuse and threats for saying that the dark colours in a particular eye-shadow palette were difficult to blend. That's her job! But apparently it was 'hate' and warranted death threats and abuse about her age, looks and fertiility issues.

This isn't criticism. It is attack, bullying and most likely not legal where there are threats.

It has come out of social media culture and I don't know how we are going to deal with it.

But the reactions people have nowadays are disproportionate to what is being said in a lot of cases.

Could you provide any examples of what you have seen that the reactions are disproportionate to what's been said?

// if you google the pile on JKR has had recently there are some examples to be seen.

But as a rule this seems ok. I've not seen any consequences to those people. It's generally people who are defending women's tights who are attract the pitchforks.

I wonder why.

• rights, not tights

The way I remember the Laurence Fox controversy, he expressed his opinion and was told that his opinion didn't count because he is a white male. That sound quite racist and sexist to me, but then who cares what I think, I'm white.

If you think that racists and sexists shouldn't have a job, how do you define racism and sexism? The problem is that they can be defined very broadly. If someone said that they went to India and it's like a different planet they will be told this sort of thing is what white people do to 'other' people who are non-white.

Do you have any examples of how free speech is being curtailed?

As mentioned above, free speech doesn’t mean that you can say whatever you like to no consequences. LBC and Twitter are both private enterprises with terms of services. Farage and Hopkins both violated those terms, and therefore were deplatformed legitimately.

There are too many people relying on the “it was ok in the moment” arguments, and that should be challenged, rather than being labelled as being ‘too quick to be offended’. For example, black face hasn’t been acceptable for decades, so its use in Little Britain is incredibly questionable, and the subsequent removal from streaming platforms is justified. The DVDs aren’t illegal to own, the removal of the series is the action of a private company making a decision on what is acceptable in association with their name. That’s not an infringement on free speech, regardless of public opinion.

I do agree that debate has lost a lot of nuance, and I see plenty of people who will just continue to shout the same rhetoric without listening to any responses.

I agree with everything you've said op but I think we've been socially conditioned to think and speak in a way which is socially acceptable or fear being under scrutiny and people seem to be on the lookout for anyone who has slipped up.

Through fear of being criticised ourselves we highlight other people who have possibly not been whiter than white especially if we ourselves have had to endure it then what's good for one is good for the other.

I do notice the way nobody is aloud to get away with anything and people get pleasure out of seeing people get into trouble or lose their job and it seems the more of an impact their behaviour negatively has on their life the more satisfaction others get almost in a childish haha way.
Reminds me of being in the playground at about 5 or 6 when people said " ummm I'm telling on you" and then standing back smugly while someone gets told off.

People are terrified of what others think of them and it contributes to so much anxiety all around.
I think it all comes down people putting others down to feel better about themselves, soothing their ego by damaging someone else's.