

No Offense: The New Threats to Free Speech - nostromo
http://online.wsj.com/articles/no-offense-the-new-threats-to-free-speech-1414783663

======
chipsy
There is no free speech without accountability. In both the cases of
censorship and unmoderated speech, silencing of opinion takes place. In the
former the silencing is through authority fiat; in the latter, by "shouting
down", misrepresenting foes, making threats, and poisoning discussion from the
inside.

In both cases, there's a presumption that some actors will aim only to "win,"
and thus treachery is necessary. However, if we treat political discussions as
an iterated game like that of Prisoner's Dilemma, then what we really need to
know to make a good decision is, "who is saying this and are they credible?"
If they are not credible, then "tit for tat" applies and we eliminate their
opinion in computing upsides and downsides to a policy.

At the low level where politics are encountered, of course, we don't have
visibility to that kind of information. We have lengthy texts and short
zingers that build arguments that may or may not be credible, and we have to
go through them one by one.

~~~
lotharbot
> _" "shouting down", misrepresenting foes, making threats, and poisoning
> discussion from the inside"_

Making threats is a serious problem -- and is also not a form of protected
speech. Intentionally misrepresenting foes in certain ways is considered
defamation and is also not protected.

The others are lesser problems as long as there are strong legal protections
in place. The problems of being shouted down or (non-maliciously)
misrepresented are mitigated by having your own platform from which to speak.
Discussion being poisoned from the inside is mitigated by people realizing
someone is poisonous and treating them as an outsider in the future. These
things are still obnoxious, but they don't tip the scales in favor of
significant speech restrictions.

------
koenigdavidmj
'Both the U.S. and the European Union have entered into a dialogue in recent
years with the 56 states of the Organization of the Islamic Conference, which
is seeking an international law prohibiting blasphemy.'

Any proof of this? My natural inclination is to say that this is conspiracy
theorist territory that should have no proper place in the WSJ. Sure, the OIC
might want blasphemy laws, but are they an actual organization with any real
ability to push for this outside traditionally Muslim countries?

~~~
dragonwriter
> Any proof of this?

The OIC has historically been one key agent pushing for international
declarations and laws providing a general protection against "defamation of
religion", largely through the Human Rights Council, and has often been
successful in declarations on this issue through the HRC, and from their into
resolutions passed by the General Assembly.

The US and EU have engaged in recent years in dialogue on this issue with the
OIC (mostly, a dialogue focussed on ensuring that individual rights were
protected and on making that the focus rather than defamation of religion),
and one result of that dialogue has been the _ending the OICs campaign on the
issue_ in 2011. [1]

So, the WSJ piece distorts the facts in two ways (the OIC has specifically
sought an international ban on defamation of religions generally, not on
"blasphemy" under the terms of any particular religion, and, more importantly,
while the dialogue the WSJ piece points to did, in fact, occur, its purpose
and effect was not to reinforce the campaign the WSJ misrepresents, but to
deflect that campaign.)

> My natural inclination is to say that this is conspiracy theorist territory
> that should have no proper place in the WSJ.

The "conspiracy theorist territory" part is, IMO, accurate; while it may not
have a _proper_ place in the WSJ by some standards, its pretty typical of the
editorial content of the WSJ even before it became News Corp property. Even
when the Journal's reputation for _news_ content was rarely questioned (which
is much less the case now than it was a couple decades ago), its _editorial_
content was generally recognized as being more than slightly rightward tilted,
and often far-right fringe.

[1]
[http://in.reuters.com/article/2011/03/24/idINIndia-558617201...](http://in.reuters.com/article/2011/03/24/idINIndia-55861720110324)

------
lexcorvus
It's refreshing to see an article address the distinction between what might
be called "tolerance of expression" and "freedom of expression". The latter,
at least in the US, is protected by the First Amendment, but it's impossible
to express frustration on this issue without being (often rather smugly)
informed that such protection doesn't exempt you from the social consequences
of your speech. [1] This is true, of course, but those social consequences
still threaten "free speech," broadly defined. Historically, one of the core
features of liberalism, especially Anglo-American liberal democracy, has been
a tolerance of divergent opinions. And yet, the inheritors of this tradition
have largely abandoned such tolerance. [2] Views that deviate even slightly
from the reigning orthodoxy are frequently smeared as "hate speech"—an
Orwellian term if ever there was one. The result is a world in which even the
most banal observations risk condemnation for bigotry.

[1]: See, e.g., [http://xkcd.com/1357/](http://xkcd.com/1357/).

[2]: I suspect the underlying reason is that "free speech" was an effective
weapon against the _ancien régime_ , but with the enemy defeated it is no
longer politically advantageous.

~~~
baddox
> One of the core features of liberalism, especially Anglo-American liberal
> democracy, has been a tolerance of divergent opinions.

An interesting workaround attempt I've seen some self-proclaimed liberals use
is the "intolerance of intolerance" argument [0]. "Hate speech," they would
argue, is an expression of intolerance, so it's acceptable (some would say
necessary) to be intolerant of such speech.

I'm not a fan of the concept, because it essentially redefines the pejorative
usage of "intolerance" to something more like "intolerance of things which I
think should be tolerated." It becomes fairly circular, because now we're just
saying that we ought to tolerate those things which we believe we ought to
tolerate.

[0]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance)

~~~
A_COMPUTER
In my social media, mostly friends of friends, the anti free speech drum is
being beaten by avowed socialists and fellow travelers who reject free speech
in principle as a "liberal fiction." For instance, in America the KKK has the
free speech right to march down the street with police protection, but animal
rights activist organizations are completely infiltrated by the FBI. These
arguments mostly don't hold water with me, but that's what I'm hearing.
Attacks on free speech have been steadily increasing on my social media over
the last couple of years, and is very generational. It is emanating from
college campuses. They are being taken over by these people.

------
TrevorJ
"“Nobody has the right to not be offended. That right doesn't exist in any
declaration I have ever read.

If you are offended it is your problem, and frankly lots of things offend lots
of people.

I can walk into a bookshop and point out a number of books that I find very
unattractive in what they say. But it doesn't occur to me to burn the bookshop
down. If you don't like a book, read another book. If you start reading a book
and you decide you don't like it, nobody is telling you to finish it.

To read a 600-page novel and then say that it has deeply offended you: well,
you have done a lot of work to be offended.”

― Salman Rushdie"

------
chroma
I think the late Christopher Hitchens put it best in a debate on whether
freedom of speech includes the freedom to hate.[1] At the start, he makes the
point that freedom of speech is just as much about freedom of hearing:

 _...it’s not just the right of the person who speaks to be heard. It is the
right of everyone in the audience to listen, and to hear. And every time you
silence someone you make yourself a prisoner of your own action, because you
deny yourself the right to hear something. In other words: Your own right to
hear and be exposed is as much involved in all these cases as is the right of
the other to voice his or her view._

And later, he asks who will we trust to do the censoring:

 _Who 's going to decide? To whom do you award the right to decide which
speech is harmful or who is the harmful speaker, or to determine in advance
what are the harmful consequences going to be, that we know enough about in
advance to prevent? To whom would you give this job? To whom are you going to
award the task of being the censor?_

 _Did you hear any speaker in opposition to this motion (eloquent as... one of
them was) to whom you would delegate the task of deciding for you, what you
could read? To whom you 'd give the job of deciding for you, relieve you of
the responsibility of hearing what you might have to hear? Do you know anyone-
hands up- to whom you would give this job? Does anyone have a nominee? You
mean there's no one in Canada good enough to decide what I can read? Or hear?
I had no idea... but there’s a law that says there must be such a person. Or
there's a subsection of some piddling law that says it. Well the hell with
that law then. It's inviting you to be liars and hypocrites and to deny what
you evidently already know already._

At the end, he notices that if you're going to censor hateful speech, you'll
need to ban religious texts. Yet most proponents of laws against hate speech
and blasphemy seem to be devoutly religious.

 _Look anywhere you like for the warrant for slavery, for the subjugation of
women as chattel, for the burning and flogging of homosexuals, for ethnic
cleansing, for antisemitism, for all this you look no further than a famous
book that 's on every pulpit in this city and in every synagogue and in every
mosque. And then just see whether you can square the fact that the force that
is the main source of hatred is also the main caller for censorship. And when
you've realized this you'll therefore this evening be faced with a gigantic
false antithesis. I hope that still won't stop you from giving the motion
before you the resounding endorsement that it deserves. Thanks awfully. Night-
night. Stay cool!_

I highly recommend watching it, as it's arguably the best recorded oration of
Hitchens.

1\.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QIyBZNGH0TY#t=1240](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QIyBZNGH0TY#t=1240)

------
therealdrag0
A related thesis can be found in: 'Kindly Inquisitors: The New Attacks on Free
Thought' by Jonathan Rauch.

Which has actually been sitting on my to-read list for a while. Has anyone
read this?

------
astrobe_
> The right to be offended, which is the other side of free speech, is
> therefore a genuine right. True belief and honest doubt are both impossible
> without it.

It seems to me that the author is actually advocating the _right to offend_ ,
which is quite a bit different.

And what is "True belief"? This statement seems wrong in its core. A belief is
by definition the opposite of evidence, certainty and rationality. So debate
and free speech have nothing to do with it. It does not need it.

~~~
Shivetya
well when everything is an offense to someone your going to need a right to
offend just to say something they don't agree with.

groups have become adept with identity politics, they use it to stop debate.
When your ideas are unpopular you instead lay claim that the attack is bigoted
because the disagreement stems from the the identity of the person's whose
idea was debated, not their idea. This allows one side to effectively stifle
debate and run amok

~~~
astrobe_
> well when everything is an offense to someone your going to need a right to
> offend just to say something they don't agree with.

Or you need a third party that defines what is offensive and what isn't.

The "right to offence" is like an arms race to me. But in arms races, it's not
rightness or truth that win. It's power.

The only case where power should win is when it's people's power, _id est_
democracy. That's why I accept, at least in principle, laws and courts as the
"third party".

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gohrt
nostromo should know better than to submit content from the _editorial_
section of the WSJ. This is a low-quality source.

------
dmazin
Note that John O’Sullivan is a zealous conservative commentator of the
O'Reilly sort and by spreading this article you are letting him set the
narrative, not the marginalized groups he attacks (which he even lists:
"[Muslims], Christians, Gays, feminists, [...], ethnic activists").

~~~
quonn
HN is already fairly liberal (this includes me) and it does not hurt to have a
conservative opinion here from time to time.

~~~
dmazin
I'm not against conservative opinions! I am saying that it's embarrassing that
we are letting the narrative be set by an oppressor (oppressor through zealous
journalism) rather than the groups he discuses.

~~~
unchocked
He only mentions such groups. His discussion is on the right of all of us to
say what we please, no matter what any marginalized group, powerful group,
majority group, minority group, or kooky fool calling reasoned commenters out
personally thinks, feels, or is triggered about it.

