Do we care about free speech anymore?

[Calmthedrama]

Not exactly an AIBU, but traffic and opinion here is high, so it seems a suitable place to ask big questions.

Personally, I believe people should be able to freely share and voice unpopular and unusual opinions in the public realm (both online, in the media and at public / state institutions like universities etc). This would include allowing so called ‘hate speech’ proponents onto various platforms in society to share their views, even if the many consider these views to be something-ist or something-phobic.

I believe that by shining a light on all views and opinions, we are able to learn from each other and (hopefully) better understand the motivations behind such thinking. This naturally leads to wider debate and promotes deeper thinking as well as a general respect for healthy debate.

It also forces all opinion / activist proponents to make better and more informed arguments and obviously publicly showcases any charlatans / psychopaths for what they are. E.g. if someone can’t provide evidence / make sense when making a case for some extreme opinion, then everyone learns.

I believe that the society wide increase in de-platforming and public ‘cancelling’ of individuals feels a bit like a race to the bottom intelligence wise. It leads us back on a well trodden path to fascism and a place where the ‘thought police’ become a reality.

Do people really understand what free speech means and why it’s so important anymore? Or do we just want to silence people we don’t like / understand / fear etc?

It was not the end of his ideas though, was it?

The government is doing things to immigrants that Nick Grifffin could only fantasise about. And we have two "news" channels dedicated to his way of thinking.

Absolutely - it goes both ways.

Reply as above. Sigh.

No, I am pointing out the implications of what you actually wrote.

@EhrlicheFrau - you've misquoted @Gerrataere in your follow up and changed 'simply' for 'slightly'.

That changes the tone.

There were calls for Nick Griffin to be withdrawn from Question Time in 2009. It went ahead with him, he spouted his rubbish and was torn to shreds by the panel and audience alike. It highlighted just what an extremist he was and how outlandish and unreasonable his views and I think that was pretty much the end of him.

Yes, I completely agree.

I'm also mindful of the other time when the highly-respected, highly-qualified expert scientist Lord Winston went on QT and expressed 'views' based on very simple long-accepted biology. He was booed by people in the audience and told by Fiona Bruce that his 'views' were controversial.

Just as plenty of people would have had Griffin 'cancelled' and not allowed to appear on the programme, so would a great many people have believed the same about Winston, had they known in advance what he would say.

We need to think very, very carefully about how we want to travel down this road.

We already have laws that deal with this anyway. We have slander and libel laws so if you do call someone something (using your free speech) then it has to be true or they can sue you. So actually you can’t just say anything you want anyway and actually that is also good for a democracy so people can’t just go round making stuff up about people. It has to be actually true!
so if you call a brexiteer a racist ( or whatever) you have to be able to back that up or they might sue you.
our current system polices itself to some extent ( although easier for the rich but that is life generally)
media is also already pretty regulated too.

Actually I think MN is a pretty good example of where allowing things to stand and be challenged just doesn’t work. I suspect how you feel about it depends on which side of the discriminatory speech you stand on.

The other issue is the the deliberate spread of disinformation relies on people being bombarded with disinformation. It’s a known technique. How do you tackle that by letting it stand and arguing it.

I suspect it might be a little naive to think that in the current era people are having their opinions changed by facts and evidence. I think that becomes less likely the more people rely on social media.

I believe strongly in free speech provided there is no incitement to harm. I don't believe that harmful attitudes are suppressed by silencing people. The attitudes remain, go underground, seek out the like minded and build like a pressure cooker. Far better to have them out there where they can be countered and challenged through information and debate.

Cheers for that - edit function isn't there for some reason.
As it stands I feel the words are similar enough in meaning and as I wasn't trying to 'change' the tone, we'll have to live with it.
It hasn't furthered/lessened your actual argument either, so, moving on.....

@Calmthedrama it makes no difference to that poster. I suspect they live by the ‘be kind, always’ mantra which really conflicts with ‘I don’t agree with this movement/religion/political vote for these reasons’. Though obviously happy to give a firm opinion on someone’s religious faith being completely without fact without an ounce of irony about the level of offence it may cause some.

Regarding the spread of disinformation, who gets to decide what is disinformation?

Regarding the Robert Winston situation, I am not expressing a view on that either way, however we have to accept that biology (like all other sciences) evolves as we increase our understanding (through new discoveries and developments).

The right to freedom of speech does not give the right to an audience, or a platform, or to be agreed with, though. And the right to tell someone whose views one might consider unacceptable to fuck off out of it is also freedom of speech.

The trend in recent years to assert that freedom of speech is some sort of absolute right to say any kind of unpleasant/provocative/misleading thing without any consequences whatsoever is getting very tedious.

The problem with bringing 'hurt feelings' into a debate about freedom of speech (or expression) is that feelings are ultimately subjective. Where do you propose we draw the line between hurt feelings, (personal) offence and freedom to speak / express?

Using your biology example, stating biological facts in 2023 can also be argued by some as hate-speech and is part of a huge debate in society (which seems to be creating an ever growing group of cancelled women).

People should have a platform, even if it's their own boring blog to spew their own boring and offensive (to some) nonsense, so we can shine a light on it and criticise it, use it to start debates and (hopefully) change laws if needed.

Hi OP. In principle I agree with you. Although I also agree that freedom of expression doesn't necessarily mean that you should automatically be granted a platform.

I can't stand the 'no-platforming' that goes on at universities in particular where those with reasonably mainstream opinions are banned from speaking, but I would 'no-platform' a holocaust denier, so does that make me a hypocrite? Because someone whom I have sympathy with, i.e. Germaine Greer cancellation offends me, but someone denying the holocaust being cancelled sees me nodding along like the dog in the Churchill advert?

The problem with limiting and sanctioning hate speech is that someone ultimately decides what constitutes hate speech, and that someone has their own sensibilities and political views that influence where that line falls.

In conclusion OP, the bar for cancellation and hate speech sanctioning should be high to avoid censoring inconvenient viewpoints and positions that we disagree, but as to where exactly that threshold is, and who gets to decide that? That's the question for me.

I agree with you.
One has to be kind and not denigrate people with our free speech though.
I agree that more people are afraid to express their views in case the politically correct police call them names.
The problem with that is that society then never knows the truth of what anyone thinks about anything. It shuts down expression and voicing an honest and polite opinion. People don't change what and how they think - they just keep it hidden out of fear.

I don't think we're allowed free speech anymore .

I presume you are referring to me.
Let me clarify, I have no issue with someone stating that a god is factual, real and true and all powerful to them, or following a set of faith based rules etc, my issue is with stating that god exists as an absolute fact. That's simply because it isn't an absolute fact and actually cannot be proven per se, even if they feel it can be proven in their situation. I fully accept freedom to believe and worship, but ask that the freedom not to believe and worship be equally accepted.

That is a fair point to make, but I also think it’s just another way to shut down conversation and shame people into not speaking out about anything.

I think anyone who wants freedom to racially abuse people deserves a good public shaming, honestly.

Freedom of expression means you won’t be locked up for saying it, not that everyone else around you has to clap.

Thank you, I think you've pretty much nailed it here.

The whole 'it's only bad people with bad ideas' trope is just that - it's the perfect mindset to get people on board though, within most modern democracies.

I've been questioned suspiciously from the start of this post, by posters who appear to have this mindset though - which as you said, is quite depressing.

I didn't actually bring hurt feelings in to it, and agree with you, that that can be very subjective!
Regarding what you call 'my biology example', I have no issue with people using acting biological information in debate but the problem comes when people using biological misinformation (either completely wrong or out of date) or just write things like, word for word 'Biology, fact' - this begs the question of which specific piece of biology they are referring to and what fact they think it proves, and doesn't really add anything to the discussion whatsoever!

I honestly do think we need to have some freedom to say what we think, however we would be on dangerous ground with absolutely no regulation - the difficulty comes in how to regulate. As another poster also said there is the issue of how much 'fake' news and information is out there now, which makes it even harder for the 'average' person (on other words someone who is not an expert in that particular topic).

Freedom of expression means you won’t be locked up for saying it, not that everyone else around you has to clap.

What about that teenage girl who was arrested for telling a policewoman that she looked like ‘her lesbian Nana’. Are we really saying that the lines are not being abused from saying something hurtful/anger inducing, to being considered ‘hate speech’ that has legal implications? What she said may have just been literal, it may have been said in a demeaning manner, but was it hate in the legal sense?

There are many racist, sexist, and homophobic people around us. Nobody "allows" anyone to be themselves. This is about expressing their views in public in RL or online.

In a liberal society that allows freedom of expression, surely the only consequence to expressing abhorrent opinions should be social - getting into arguments, losing friends, etc. The consequence to merely expressing unpleasant opinions should not be losing your job and getting a criminal record.

Freedom of expression should not be just the freedom to express opinions the state finds acceptable. That is no freedom at all.

As Voltaire said, "I disagree with what you have to say, sir, but I will defend, to the death, your right to say it."

I wholeheartedly support free speech - that does not stretch to incitement.