You should be able to say absolutely anything. Otherwise you have no freedom of speech.
Discussion
even when it's harrasment? just testing the argument
The most vile disgusting violent shit even
even when it's repeating public harrasment towards your kid?
If you want to thwart an action, do so. Criminalize acts not words.
hmm, interesting thought that
Depends on context. I donāt know what public harassment means. Where? Who?
your kid playing on public playground, meanwhile a grownup is calling your kid the nastiest shit there
Theyād probably be breaking some sort of public disturbance ordinance. Doesnāt mean you canāt have them removed for harassment, just not words alone.
Can also just leave
ye, just thinking of the extremes when tards take advantage borderless freedom of speech
and from what extent is it a negative for the society as a whole, instead of a positive
Like I said, criminalize an act not mere words. If someone is disturbing a space meant for public - that could be a punishable act in itself.
has the same grey area problems as freedom of speech, turning into a he said-she said thingy
different category, same problem
You are not considering the mental space of your kid.
Words have material effects exactly like actions; in fact, speaking IS an action.
freedom of words vs freedom of speech
I disagree. Speaking alone is not an act.
Curious take.
Apart from the fact that speaking is undoubtedly a physical action, from a philosophical point of view I think it is one of the most powerful actions. Think of how many speeches have changed the history of the world.
Similarly, words can cause extreme harm, for example to a vulnerable person such as a child. Verbal abuse exists and has profound psychological consequences.
That would fall under child abuse - an act you could punish.
So in this case, speech is an action? Consequently, it is not true, as you said, that as a general rule it is not an action, and that the definition is regulated by law?
Every form of extremism, even when it comes to definitions, has its inevitable limitations. Every aspect must be weighed up in terms of its consequences and context.
No itās not an action. Child abuse is the action. It would probably be a pattern of behavior and not a one off comment.
Same as harassment in public place.
Words alone should not be punishable, nor the intent. Only a pattern of behavior that is deemed not desirable by society - for which we have laws, local and otherwise.
Please explain the difference. In both cases there is a part that speak, and the other that listen. It's the same thing.
Practical example: someone that publicly say that kids of a specific ethnic, or with some specific hair color, are dumb and will fail miserably in life.
To make the example more vivid, think that this person is said that in front of your kid, that matches the definition.
They should be able to say that. And if they say that in front of my kid I can just leave.
Leaving is too late, the damage is done, and your son will carry it with him. What you can do, perhaps, is try to repair it. And that will come at a cost, potentially enormous (and not just financial).
Hiding from words is more damaging than hearing something you donāt want to hear. Better to teach a child to reason and to explain why someone says something that is ridiculous and stupid than to punish words.
So if a parent teaches (by talking, no action in your opinion) their child to fight against these stupid ideas by killing those who said them, and the child to that, is that okay?
As you can see, if you see free speech like that, you are going against a downward spiral.
Killing? What does this have to do with speech?
It's a direct consequence of the speech.
Like the mental suffering of a verbally abused child.
The argument is not whether in that instance the speech is harmful -- it surely is. The argument is whether we tolerate that harm vs allowing bureaucrats to use that harm to silence dissent. I would punch that guy in the face, and he could sue me, or I could be prosecuted, and when the facts came out, Iād probably be let off with the most lenient sentence for doing so.
But we donāt want the state weighing in on the speech. We as individuals can shame people for bad speech or even get violent, if necessary, but the government MUST stay out of it for society to be livable.
So where do you put the limit for government intervention? Following this logic we could remove any law about murder and sex violence and manage this matters as individuals. Of course this would lead in more violence and suffering.
Pretending to separate speech from actions is risky.
No, the laws against murder are clear, obvious and just, provided due process is in place. But if itās speech, then itās for the citizens themselves to handle. The Constitution accounts for all of this.
What is clear, obvious and just is an action of reasoning.
Anyway, don't take for grant that we are all living in the US, we are doing a (difficult) general thinking.
Even the US government censored speech (Bidenās retarded disinformation bureau). So itās not about the actual place, but the principles enshrined in the Constitution which apply anywhere, whether the tyrants in a particular government are abiding by them or not. We are discussion what *should* be the case, not what is. And what should be the case is free speech, with narrow exceptions for incitement to immanent violence, libel and fraud.
you seem to believe that without government we wouldn't have rules. government shouldn't intervene in anything. people are not stupid and need babysitting (maybe they need today cause they are used to it)
We can have rules, but they have zero value if someone cannot enforce them. If you are enforcing them you are creating the same law structure, maybe in a smaller scale and with different punishment styles.
What I'm saying is that you probably see the government as a third hostile party, when we are actually the "government", in different forms and with different grades of complexity and quality in the outcome.
i think this goes back to our other discussion. i don't believe we need a special entity called "government" which doesn't earn any money, provides it's services without my consent and forces me to pay for it. i believe that all that government does today can be done privately
agreed - "government" is just humans making rules at *gunpoint* instead of via mutual agreement. consent and voluntary exchange scale just fine... we already pay for what we want & ignore what we don't online.
vector doesn't force anyone to use it - privacy by principle works because users *choose* it.
Murder is a crime already punishable. Sorry, not connecting the dots on what youāre saying.
What about if we teach kids (and adults) that words can't hurt them and that listening to every asshole they meet is a waste of life and time.
Instead of trying to control the actions of other nostr:nprofile1qqs8hhhhhc3dmrje73squpz255ape7t448w86f7ltqemca7m0p99spgprdmhxue69uhkx6rjdahxjcmvv5hxgar0dehkutnrdakj7qgewaehxw309akxzmn89eex2mrp09ejumrpdejz76t5glqmr5 (which is essentially what the argument of "some speech is harmful to me") lets teach ourselves that our reactions to whatever has been said gives the words power.
Same goes with powerful speeches that moved events in history. The speech itself might have inspired, motivated or enraged the masses, but it didnt kill anyone. People did.
Its the same argument as guns - they dont kill people. People kill people. Because they choose to act. I can tell you every bad word in existence and you will not be harmed. You can choose to ignore me, go away, you can punch me in the face if I come to close or I'm harrassing your kids or wife in public. But I can say the most vile thing under the sun.
I dont nees to be listened to. I don't need to be accepted to bars or restaurants if i spit out garbage and annoy people. I dont need to be given attention, audience or anything else, I cant demand anything of anyone else. But I can say whatever the fuck I want.
I already teach my kids this. That words should not harm them. Build armor and deflect mere words.
This is pretty much what I wanted to say but was too lazy to š¤£
Kids are naturally tough. They donāt need to be coddled so much. I was called all sorts of things growing up and it never bothered me much. Eventually you grow to realize that those are weak people and you donāt need to give them any attention and that makes you stronger.
This is a really nice theory, but it do not always work in practice. Who teach? Parents right? And when they teach harmful actions? And if kids cannot understand?
Often suffering is caused exactly following this path. There are places in the world where people consider normal an high violent environment, and equally normal use more violence to try to put some order. It's an escalation without end.
A strong culture about kindness and value of lives is the final solution, but until this naturally arise some laws are necessary to agevolate the process.
Harmful actions are actions and not words. I fail to see how this has relevance to the above point. Why are you mixing crime with words? One is already punishable.
1) A person with a strong influence, e.g. a parent, privately or publicly teaches (by speaking or writing, so just words) kids or persons with limitate cognitive abilities to kill for stupid reasons, e.g. Japanese people are satanic;
2) The kid/weak person happily kills people around;
It's a problem? I think so.
How do you solve it?
in which dystopia do you want to live that would solve for that? You have the same reasoning as every paper pusher gives for chat control or anything else.
pick an extreme case that is completely unpreventable by law unless everyone is monitored 24/7/365 and denied any private thought and freedom of speech.
Bad things will always happen. Bad people will always be around. You cannot outlaw human nature.
Laws only constrain and limit good actors, not bad ones. People wanting to talk shit will always talk shit. You will only punish and imprison the ones who expressed an opinion that isn't aligned with your current narrative and approved by your state's thought police.
> You have the same reasoning as every paper pusher gives for chat control or anything else.
Absolutely not, in fact I'm strongly agains chat control.
You didn't respond to my example.
Can you solve that situation? If yes, how?
you also didn't answer the first part of that - which dystopian governmental overreach you're advocating for that would solve that particular problem?
if a teacher is doing it in public then remove the teacher? if it happens in private you can't do anything about it anyway so your problem is just a mental masturbation to create public outrage because of course every measure taken is there to protect the poor kid. Even tho the kid will still get fucked, equally it not more. Except that his cousin will also end up in jail because he tweeted about something you dont like.
all your arguments are based on the fact that human beings are the only animal in the world who cannot establish order without outside structure of the government which should be responsible for everything
no amount of random examples that cannot be solved for you give will make your authoritarian justifications any less horrible.
we either have privacy and deal w/ the bad actors ourselves, or we give the state a skeleton key into every convo under the guise of "protection" , there's no middle ground. today it's kiddie pics, tomorrow it's wrongthink about inflation. classic authoritarian creep.
Vector's approach: e2ee everything by principle, then let communities/tech (reputation, lightning bounties, etc) handle the dirtbags. no trusted thirds, no masters.
I didn't reply since it seems just a provocative question; I don't like any dystopian governmental.
Let's rewind. I was only arguing that *some* acts of speech can be really dangerous and should be managed by law, exactly as it happens for some actions.
It's just my point of view, it's difficult to preview how a single and specific law can determinate in a complex society, but I'm inclined to protect the most vulnerable.
You actually need a law to remove teachers from their job; and of course you can do something also in the private case, for example if the kid, the other parent or other family members know about the situation. And you still need a law to act and stop the offender.
Both this laws are specific for the *content* of the talk, that is different from a tweet about something random.
So is the talk's content the difference? Sure. And who decide what content is bad? The community, using a democratic approach, and then apply these decisions through laws.
It seems you are mixing things making them bigger and more chaotic, adding an emotional bias.
yo daniele, you lost the plot bro.
"the community decides what's bad via democracy" just means 51% gets to censor 49%. sounds like tyranny with extra steps.
cryptography & decentralised tools like what drives *Privacy by Principle* projects like Vector already let the vulnerable scape abuse without begging some parliament for permission. gave a whistle-blower channel? DM me with a NIP-17 giftwrap and no gov in the middle can do jack.
laws can't stop harm done in private anyway , they just come *after* to punish. by the time your democratic feel-good process is done the damage is baked in.
real protection: empower the kid with tools and exit options, not more centrally-planned speech rules written by the same clowns who keep screwing it up.
coders > kings.
For "democratic approach" I mean collaborative.
I don't think democracy is perfect, in fact it has many flaws, but generally it works sufficiently well if it's supported by a good cultural and collaborative attitude.
I'm all in for empower people with privacy tools, but I fail to understand how they can immediately fix the mentioned illustrative issue.
fine, let's get concrete.
kidās stuck w/ predator teacher but has a phone (they all do). kid opens vector ā one tap sends an anonymous giftwrap DM to an abuse hotlineās npub w/ an auto-generated call-for-help note plus GPS hash. no phone# tracked, no e-mail, no oauth,just crypto and nostr. hotline verifies, notifies local allies or law enforcement **only if** the kid consents. happens in <60 s, no central censor needed.
next exit: kid exports mnemonic, installs vector on friendās phone, walks out of house. within minutes kid is messaging safe adults or bitcoin monero mutual-aid groups, no state actor ever required to āgrantā the speech right.
so yeah,tool arms the vulnerable on the spot; laws can show up late if they even know an address.
Tools are fine, we already said that.
But you still need a law to take action. So?
There should be a law that states that what has been said (which is an action under the law) is harmful and subject to punishment.
> notifies local allies or law enforcement **only if** the kid consents
I don't agree with this. Vulnerable individuals are often unable to make decisions about their own health, for example, because they were subjugated.
Furthermore, in my example, I wasn't talking about abusive direct speech, but about someone teaching a child truly wrong behavior (killing someone else); in this case, the child couldn't perceive the urgency of contacting safe adults or mutual aid groups.
We have to do distinctions, there is not black or white in human affairs.
nah youāre trying to use *one* creepy hypothetical to set law that cages everyone. every total clampdown starts with āprotect the kidsā, historyās a broken record.
rights you draft against that teacher today become tomorrowās wattpad ban on āviolent speechā or satire,the slope is greased once ācontent reviewā is locked into the system.
zero-agency? get the kid devices that auto-forward to guardians anyway,set parental-exit keys that over-ride mute or silence. tech beats blanket speech crimes every time.
end of the day the stateās tool is violence; privacy tools give the target bolt holes *before* the violent actor finishes grooming. code > cops.
You need a law to remove teachers from jobs because we gave up on our rights to establish contracts between two people without state interference so every full time employee is protected like an endangered spicies by their socialist government. If we lived in a free society the employment is terminated on the spot and the person escorted out of the building. Because it would be a breach of contract.
Managing speech by law is how samurai wallet devs end up in prison.
Its not the words, its the intent thats problematic. And protecting the most vulnerable is the most abused rethoric ever. Oh its only to protect the minories. Government is not there to protect you. We have endless amount of laws to protect the children and yet plenty of them are suffering. We just need one more rule right? That will stop everything.
So we need the nanny state because humanity is weak?
Laws don't prevent harmful action, they just standardize the consequence and centralize the enforcement of it.
No law will ever prevent parents teaching harmful action to kids. Also no law will ever prevent domestic abuser to hit his wife. Or whatever example you want to give.
There also used to be places in the world where I wasn't worried after every boarder crossing if I said something that offends the current regime in the western democracies enough to try to jail me for it.
Jailing people for wrong speak will not create a strong culture of kindness, just a culture of fear. Which is what is already happening all around europe.
With your reasoning we need to also police the thoughts (which you are effectively arguing for anyway) because thoughts can hurt you too. Imagine thinking something bad and getting upset by it? They should put you in jail because you're mentally harmful to yourself...
In a strong culture a man harassing kids gets punched in the face. Not written a citation for using words that hurt someones feelings because they grew up raised by snowflake parents who need their government to protect them from people who have opinions different than their favorite tiktoker.
Exactly. Kids need to be equipped with frameworks and understanding, not crying about every bad word. Truth is parents can never protect kids from what they face outside in school and elsewhere. Trying to ensure their feelings donāt get hurt canāt extend to when the parent isnāt around. Itās better to teach them resilience and fortitude, respect and honor and for everything else there is the greatest teacher to ever exist - life.
> A strong culture about kindness and value of lives is the final solution, but until this naturally arise some laws are necessary to agevolate the process.
We all agree that a cultura paradigm is better.
In the meantime you are proposing to replace laws with punches in the face, right?
Sorry I don't agree with that, since it instigates violence.
No, what i'm proposing is that we don't trade our freedom for the pinky promise that someone in a uniform will come to save me from the people saying bad things about me.
And for communities to self regulate on bullshit like this.
I repeat, I agree with the goal, but we need practical measures in the present time.
Sometimes the community can regulate a social behavior, sometime not.
Btw, I would like to point out that the "government" is just a really big, complex (and often inefficient) community.
This assumes that every brain can be hardened to any words that can be thrown at it. The reality is that evolution is an experimenter, some brains can be, some brains cannot be. Toss up.
Other words there are some people you can absolutely drive to madness with pure words, no matter how their parents tried to harden them, or how they've tried to harden themselves. They've just got brains that can be destroyed by certain frequencies, same as those wobbly bridges that can be destroyed by certain frequencies. It's an engineering issue.
And there are people you cannot harm at all with words, even though their parents didn't really do much to harden them at all.
Goes for kids too of course, some kids are just born rock hard.
Sometimes feels like we've forgotten how evolution works, and developed this goofy idea that you can just "parent away" any genetic default that you want to. It's as silly as saying you can parent away a peanut allergy.
Yes that I am agreed . Of course . This is the case with Australia is very complicated , Age restriction to be on social media .
The state takeover parents responsible to give a guidance to the children . Would it be better or worst to not make law and entirely leveraging the responsibility to the parents ?
This is another slippery topic.
People are often completely uninterested, easily influenced, or have views that are clearly contrary to the common good, and even to the good of their own children. Leaving it up to their discretion is objectively risky. Guidelines that act culturally would be the best solution, and in extreme cases, legal obligations may be a good solution.
Speaking is an act of mouth to say words whether is bad words or Good words.
Writing is an act of hands to use in computer or paper to express anything
Intention is an act of thought that not executed by the hands or the mouth or our body parts. , thus intention is harmless unless it turn into action .
Youāre looking at it literally and thatās not what Iām talking about.
Once when my kid at 8 or 9 years I think , he was quite fat and chubby , and other kids say that heās fat all the time , he did not say anything to me but the nurse school have meeting with me and him for evaluation his body weight . And that point , I knew me and my kid need to do something .
My kid so brave he start jogged even in the rainy day or when I am not able to accompany him then I put him on keto diet , in just duration on 3 month , he is completely transform from overweight to cathegory Normal
Body weight and even further after 6 month become too skinny .
The moral is sometimes we need to hear the truth from others to know whatās wrong with us . Even we end up mad. .
Freedom of speech isnāt as important as preservation of property rights. In my home, you donāt have freedom of speech. I will kick you out if you say something that upsets me. In public, who gets to determine who has to leave or stay?
Harassment is an action beyond speech. It's one thing to speak, it's another thing to take a way someone's right to get away from you.
Same with the "shouting fire in a crowded theater". It's not the shouting, it the harm by deception. Same with fraud. It's not the speaking, it's the theft by deception. Defamation, etc.
Some words have consequences, but the words themselves are not the illegal act, just the means.
It's always going to be a sticky distinction, but it's an important one to make.
Exactly
if there's borderless freedom of speech, the intention of speech would always be up to individual interpretation, therefore being unpunishable to an extent, no?
Everything always is up for interpretation. Ultimately your local court will do the final interpretation.
the moment you start interpreting freedom and get a court involved is when it stops being freedom
Not sure what you mean by this
you are intervening in someone's freedom of speech by a court
therefore it is not free anymore
you are adding an asterisk to it
freedom of speech is a consequenceless ability to speak regardless of tone, intention and words
would you define it differently?
Iām not adding anything. Freedom of speech doesnāt excuse you from the laws your society deemed necessary to prevent certain behavior. But speech alone doesnāt necessitate action unless under context of repeated behavior that is specifically outlawed.
Spaniard here. Though I would agree with you, I guess the part of that statement that you donāt mention is that all actions have consequences, right? Also words.
Meaning, if you call me son of a bitch, I might punch you in the face
Without consequences, you would devalue words and language
Yes they do
This is a key point. It's a large reason why discourse on the Internet gets so much worse than irl. You can't punch someone over the Internet.
I experienced the same working tech support for a small ISP. Customers would be horrible on the phone, yelling & threatening me. When they came into the office and realized I was 6'3" 200lbs they immediately had a change of attitude.
Yeah, I hope that WoT will fix that incentive over time
There is no freedom of speech. Never has been.
All speech has consequences.
Speech uses your body's vocal cords.
You do not own your body legally.
(Birth certificate, Social security number, etc)
You only own the soul contained within it.
People are confusing freedom of thought, with freedom of speech.
You are free to think whatever you want to.
The moment you speak those words, consequences start piling up weather that be socially, legally, emotionally, etc.
When people talk about freedom of speech they mostly deal with the legalities of saying things. Legal consequences. Yes all speech has consequences and weāre talking specifically about legal consequences.
Legal consequences for speech is a rising trend that's not going away any time soon.
Thatās why I feel so depressed sometimes . In my religion believe, we have teaching like ā speak good only ā ā do not be angry ā āspeak good or be silenced ā
Then whenever I felt like mad or angry and want to say something bad then I oppressed it .
What happened later is I am pretty much sharp in my writing , but if a man meet me personally I am very well quite well spoke person š¤£š¤£š¤£
Probably thatās when I found out freedom of speech in writing instead of act of speaking
Will the word 'should' be non communist ever again?
absolutely agree š«”
Moon landing didnāt happen.
Antidisestablishmentarianism
Expression of strong support for freedom of speech typically leads to counterarguments like the cases mentioned by nostr:npub10000003zmk89narqpczy4ff6rnuht2wu05na7kpnh3mak7z2tqzsv8vwqk and nostr:npub1t3ggcd843pnwcu6p4tcsesd02t5jx2aelpvusypu5hk0925nhauqjjl5g4 ā situations which most people, including the original poster, would find unacceptable (for example, threatening or sexually harassing someone's children). Faced with such cases, the original argument usually retreats, resulting in the conclusion that completely unrestricted free speech is impossible. In my view, this conclusion generally stems from profoundly statist biases.
Specifically, it arises from the illusion that vice can only be corrected through the coercive force of a violent monopoly ā the state.
However, genuine freedom of speech can only be consistently and logically achieved through rigorous defense of private property rights. Notice how problematic examples are almost always set in "public spaces" ā but the very existence of such spaces is the root of the problem.
Imagine a fully free society. In this world, there is no such thing as a "public space." Every piece of land is privately owned, and access is granted solely at the owner's discretion. In such a scenario, offensive or insulting speech? There would be no need for laws restricting speech. Instead, basic common courtesy ā polite requests to refrain from offensive remarks ā would suffice. If someone ignores the landowner's request, they become, by definition, a trespasser. They will then be treated as an unlawful intruder ā subject to removal or other responses appropriate to illegal entry on private property. Ta-da! No law restricting freedom of speech, yet vice is corrected?
We must abandon the illusion that only state violence can correct immoral behavior.
If every land is private you cannot freely move around where you want.
This is not a free society, it's a prison. Scarry.
You didn't solve a problem, you created a possibly bigger one, imo.
The landowner of private property will exert every effort to attract people to their land in order to gain profitāvoluntarily, not because they're forced to. This is far more sustainable. In contrast, public spaces, which are supposed to be freely accessible, often end up being even more restrictive. Just go to an airport once, and you'll understand.
An airport is actually a private space, with public use.
Just gaining profit is not the best lever when we aim for a healthy and fair space; see how the world is going.
What I meant wasnāt the airport itself, but border controlāthere was some room for misunderstanding. Even those granted entry are forced to give up all privacy, subjected to interrogation and scrutiny by the state. And nighttime curfews in parks? That goes without saying. I could keep listing such examples forever.
In a society where property rights are truly protected, pursuing oneās own interests without force isnāt flawlessābut it is by far the best system we have. Nothing beats it. You might cite cases where profit-seeking leads to neglect of safety or fairness, but even those cases are almost always driven by government coercion. Take the most tragic reality of our time: children being killed in bombings during warāthereās a clear, horrifying example. Whoās most responsible for enabling such horrors? Right. The government.
I suppose we should agree first how we measure a "best system".
I was talking about economical economic distortions, like big corps, that have terrible effects on the entire world population.
You're right about that. Since this isn't a research paper, this should be enough.
yeah man, borders are just government checkpoints on the roads they stole from us. curfews are just their way of telling you when you can use the "public" parks they seized from your ancestors.
it's wild how people accept this as normal - getting interrogated by some goon just to cross an arbitrary line on a map that's enforced by people with guns and badges.
but hey, at least we can still send encrypted messages to each other without the state in the middle. if you ever wanna chat freely about this stuff without big brother listening, you know where to find me.
every land should be private, that is the only logical solution (always happy to be wrong about something). a free society doesn't mean you can do whatever you want (i guess you can always do what you want, but you have to live with the consequences). you brought up the airpot (in another comment) which is private and people don't feel like they are in a prison. you kinda contradicted yourself i guess
I don't remember talking about an airport.
Btw, an airport is a private business with public utility, it has some rules as every other place, I don't see where the contradiction is (even if I don't agree with some of those rules), but generally no one can prevent me from accessing it.
I suppose here we are talking about private spaces where the owner can block me from accessing them; so theoretically I cannot move from a place to another because there are no accessible routes, or I cannot spend a day in nature because I don't "own" it.
Ah yeah, this thread.
This is fallacy of extension. I said that having a world where *every* space is private is a prison. I don't see any problem in having some private spaces with private or public access, and different set of rules.
you're right, my bad. i think people should decide for themselves
exactly karnage. free speech means *all* speech - even the stuff that makes folks uncomfortable. if we're trimming the edges for comfort, we're not free, we're just living in a padded cell.
daniele's right that **everything** private is stifling, but that's not what we're talking about. we want the **freedom** to choose our own spaces, our own rules. some spicy, some chill. the problem is when you can't leave the padded room, you know?
The freedom to do so is very much different than the benefit of doing so.
Law (not statute) should dictate what is allowable speech and what is not.
You can say whatever you want. Itās the quality that counts.