I think about it in terms of pro- and anti-social speech. Free speech is about pro-social speech, not anti-social. The way I see it, people conflate the two types of speech.
Citizens arguing about ugly topics like identity politics, conspiracies, coverups, etc. are de-facto pro-social - they are trying to sway public opinion on political issues, ostensibly to make their society better. It becomes anti-social when those arguments are being pushed by outside parties (Russian/Chinese/corpo propaganda) or grifters.
Pro-social speech can also become anti-social when people get too heated and start attacking others based on their beliefs. It's difficult to deal with speech that is both pro- and anti-social, in terms of trying to convey a sincere argument while also being toxic to those who don't agree. In cases like that, "rules of engagement" or a code of conduct should be implemented.
Anti-social speech is to say things without the goal of construction/progress, but instead with the goal of destruction or abuse. Spam and porn are anti-social in certain contexts and are treated as such, the same way drug use and swearing is (or maybe used to be).
Assuming you believe in the thesis that free speech prevents social collapse and totalitarianism, then it doesn't matter whether you disagree with or even hate certain arguments/views, if they are sincere then they are pro-social and should be given some platform to be heard and interacted with in the mainstream.
I think this is the dangerous opinion that led us down the censorship path that the article is decrying. “Pro-social” and “anti-social” are subjective, not objective.
To a religious conservative, it would be pro-social to say “marriage should only be between one man and one woman”. To many progressives, this would be “anti-social”.
Here’s a conundrum. Is “we should kill all nazis” pro-social or anti-social? On its face it seems to promote violence, so maybe anti-social, but the people it’s targeted at themselves support horrific views.
As a Gen X libertarian, I am pretty much a free speech absolutist (I support minimal legal limits such as CSAM because there must have been victimization involved). It boggles my mind that so many young people today don’t support free speech; tides of culture and government change and if you allow free speech to slip away when trends support suppressing ideas you oppose, it won’t be there for you when ideas that you support are in the crosshairs.
AFAIK Musk has also characterized himself as a free speech absolutist but has now re-suspended Ye.
I’d be curious to hear whether you think that this suspension is compatible with free speech absolutism? Put differently, was Musk simply marketing himself as an absolutist (to win over following) but is in reality a pragmatist, willing to bend his stance when he views it in his own or society’s best interest?
For now, Twitter can ban whoever it wants, but I don't think that banning Ye really aligns with free speech absolutism. Mandatory disclaimer: I found Ye's comments highly offensive (and stupid), but that is not my standard for censorship.
Yes. That much was obvious when he kept Alex Jones banned over an anecdote. It's more of a marketing tactic, not an exercise of morals.
If liberals already hate Elon, then the best course of action is for him to pander predominantly to people on the right. Right now, the best way to do that is by advertising free speech.
It's not subjective at all, it's a judgement of whether speech aligns with cooperation or attack as understood in human nature within tribes/communities.
Pro-social doesn't mean "positive" or "good" or "correct", it means that it's an attempt at progress or improvement for the community, from some sincere point of view.
"We should kill all nazis" is pro-social in terms of sincere critique, and anti-social in the threat of wanting to kill them. If we're at war with nazis then calling to kill them is likely mostly pro-social. If they're part of our tribe, whereby you are threatening your own people, then it's definitively anti-social. "We shouldn't accept nazis" is fully pro-social, and so is "we should all be nazis".
We can instinctively tell when someone is trying to be cooperative or offensive (attacking, deliberately destructive) to us in some way. We have the capability of recognizing it even if there are cultural/moral/logical (epistemic) divides. We just have to take the time to understand the other party's perspective and situation, then we can categorize their behavior.
And yet, organizations like FIRE will happily defend the "speech rights" of TPUSA students who take a class taught by one of my trans friends over and over just so they can write hate speech in legally protected coursework with the full intention of failing the course.
In what manner were they doing this? ie. were the students making counter-arguments during the course in a civil manner, or were they attacking the professor in an abusive manner?
I'm assuming what they did was something like write "There are only two genders" in an exam paper as a form of protest. If that's the case then I'd say what they're expressing is pro-social, but they're doing it in an anti-social manner, and should have been reprimanded on that basis.
And, assuming again that that's what happened, then it's definitely not "hate speech" - which is exactly what I just tried to differentiate in my previous comment.
No. They would write considerably more extreme things than that.
This isn't taking place in course discussion. The course has nothing to do with trans people.
They take a course in a topic they do not care about that is taught by a trans person (or a gay person or a woman). They deliberately write statements specifically targeting the status of the professor in an extreme way but in legally protected places. They do this in an attempt to get the professor to react in some manner so they can sue to school for discrimination against conservative students. They are clearly coached by a legal team because 18 year olds do not actually understand the precise legal boundaries they can walk up to.
Citizens arguing about ugly topics like identity politics, conspiracies, coverups, etc. are de-facto pro-social - they are trying to sway public opinion on political issues, ostensibly to make their society better. It becomes anti-social when those arguments are being pushed by outside parties (Russian/Chinese/corpo propaganda) or grifters.
Pro-social speech can also become anti-social when people get too heated and start attacking others based on their beliefs. It's difficult to deal with speech that is both pro- and anti-social, in terms of trying to convey a sincere argument while also being toxic to those who don't agree. In cases like that, "rules of engagement" or a code of conduct should be implemented.
Anti-social speech is to say things without the goal of construction/progress, but instead with the goal of destruction or abuse. Spam and porn are anti-social in certain contexts and are treated as such, the same way drug use and swearing is (or maybe used to be).
Assuming you believe in the thesis that free speech prevents social collapse and totalitarianism, then it doesn't matter whether you disagree with or even hate certain arguments/views, if they are sincere then they are pro-social and should be given some platform to be heard and interacted with in the mainstream.