WAPO OP ED: Five myths about free speech

[lindysalsagal]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/five-myths/five-myths-about-free-speech/2020/07/02/7e2694b8-bb1b-11ea-80b9-40ece9a701dc_story.html

By Suzanne Nossel : the chief executive of PEN America and the author of ""Dare to Speak: Defending Free Speech for All."
July 2, 2020 at 11:04 a.m. EDT

1. Speech cannot cause harm by itself.
2. Government prohibitions can suppress hateful ideologies.
3. The best remedy for disfavored speech is more speech.
4.We all enjoy the same speech rights.
5.Social media restrictions are forms of censorship.

Read. It.

[zipplewrath]

1. I can't

But I am concerned about #4

[lindysalsagal]

2. Great comments:

6 minutes ago
WaPo should really reconsider the 5 Myths format.

This is an opinion piece, presenting a number of social science theories, which ironically claims that other, modern social science theories are myths, while the author’s conclusions are facts.

I agree with some of the author’s 5 views, but presenting them as myth-countering facts is intellectually dishonest.

[lindysalsagal]

3. This one's great, too.

40 minutes ago
with regard to myths 4 and 5: The issue where FB and YouTube (and perhaps twitter) by using their algorithms artificially increase the reach of what should be minor far sided opinions that really would never see much light of day. Normally these horrid opinions would stay in their lane of 2% of the population, but FB especially, has (using equivalence and "freedom of speech&quot bumped this stuff up to (I'm guessing) 35- 40% of the information. That isn't free speech, that is propaganda. We all have the right to say what we want, but we don't have the right to have people forced to listen to us. Especially as some of these things are hurting people and in some cases, killing them (antivaxers, false info on coronavirus, etc)

another issue that I have never understood is the libel and related laws. Anyone can have a bad opinion of you and say it, but why can people change FACTS and do damage and get away with it? Why can't they sue when facts (not opinions) are changed or ignored? Don't understand this at all. Also why is it supposedly different for public figures? Seems like it would be easier to protect the facts of what that person did or where that person was, etc.

another thing - aren't there certain standards for news organizations with regard for sources, etc. ? That still allows for different opinions and view points (say WSJ vs. NYT) but they are all working off the same facts. Why is Fox labeled an entertainment network and yet does news? Same for FB, why don't the news standards apply to them since they manipulate (make) the news by using algorithms.
Likethumb_up

[J_William_Ryan]

4. "The best remedy for disfavored speech is more speech."

More speech may not be a remedy for disfavored speech, but neither is government preemption or restriction – not that Nossel is advocating for either, but for some that might be the inference.

“We all enjoy the same speech rights” is in fact true as a matter of the law; it’s a myth in the context of private speech.

[lindysalsagal]

6. She says more speech can magnify offending speech, and that's proof it doesn't work.

But I think you need to magnify the bad speech to air it out and hopefully remedy it.

[Igel]

5. I've read a lot of defenses of oppression and censorship.

The one I hadn't seen before was #5. Not in that form.

The form I saw it in dealt with media like the press, books, the mail, and when they came along, photocopiers. All of which could be used for bad things being said to undermine the True and Right Morality that the powers that be wanted to instill in fashioning a "New Man" (or "evolved human", to update the lingo). And therefore all of which had to be subject to review, control.

Even typewriters for a while were suspect. Too easy to sit there with carbon paper and make 10 barely legible copies of something that was banned to prevent speech harm, further the wrong politics, engage is speech against the True and Right, give voice to the bourgeois. "Hello, police? This man I know is up till 3 a.m. every night typing. He can be heard. He works as a mailman." < click > And immediately somebody has to go and check, because you can't trust other people in such a social system. Now we'd have a cell phone and post it to Twitter.

No side ever starts off saying, "I'm bad and evil." They all start off with the assumption that they are good and know better, so "eat your peas." Everybody always believes that they have only the best intentions and want to help.

Asshole bastards you spot and can deal with. True believers that demand others behave like them or else? They get followers and you wind up with brownshirts or cadres of loyal party members or redshirts or twitmobs or KKKers or the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith or ISIS.

[Yeehah]

7. I would add the Supreme Court's myth that money equals speech

Citizens United must be repealed.

[Silent3]

8. One of the most stupid "free speech" concepts I've run across...

...and sadly, many times right here on DU (fortunately not very much lately) is that simply criticizing what someone else says is an attack on that person's "free speech".

Even nasty pile-ons (deserved or not), as chilling to free expression as they can be, aren't attacks on the right to free speech. The rest of the world is never obligated to give someone else's opinion a warm welcome.

It's also very important to clearly distinguish between the legal right to free speech, and simply creating environments conducive to free expression and the sharing of ideas. Both are important, but only one is an issue of basic rights.

Only the government is obligated to protect free speech. We can hope and encourage that private individuals and private businesses to promote free expression, but it's not a violation of free speech in a legal sense if individuals and businesses don't willingly provide everyone an uncensored platform to say whatever they want.

I am very concerned about major social media platforms, even as they are private businesses, becoming tools for the mass dissemination of disinformation and paranoid conspiracy theories. I don't know exactly what I'd do about that legally, but I think it would be fair to have some form of regulation over major media platforms to try to fix this problem, because I do see that as a bigger threat to democracy than any limitations of free speech that it might entail, and just as justified as already-accepted limitations on free speech barring libel, slander, incitement to riot, public endangerment, etc.

[Me.]

9. I Disagree With All Of It

Starting with #1. Speech can harm, it can hurt, incite and get a deceitful politician elected. The rest, mind you IMHO, is bunk.