Computing Forever: “The Western world is
not going under. Not on my watch.”
Well… hurray.
* Intro *
Hello ladies, enbies and gents.
This video is about free speech. What it is
and some of the common misconceptions about
what it is.
To quote Amnesty International: “Free speech
is one of our most important rights and one
of the most misunderstood.”
Free speech is the right to communicate views
and ideas without fear of interference from
the government.
In a democratic society, free speech is obviously
important because if you aren’t allowed
to disagree with the government then you can’t
challenge the government. Without free speech,
anyone who ran for office against the current
administration would be breaking the law as
would anyone who advocated that we vote for
anyone other than the current administration.
However, if you’ve ever seen or heard a
person respond to criticism of their opinion
with a phrase like, “I’m entitled to my
opinion!” then you are almost certainly
talking to a freeze peach warrior ie. someone
who believes freedom of speech equates to
freedom from criticism.
This is the sort of thing Amnesty are referring
to when they say free speech is one of the
most misunderstood rights.
Sargon: “Free speech is not the number of
words in your lexicon. It is whether you are
able to express political ideas without ramification.
Freedom of speech is the right to political
speech without suffering political consequences.
It does not matter where those consequences
originate from and it is LOW to attempt to
weasel out of responsibility for infringing
on someone’s rights to free political expression
under the guise of ‘well it’s only censorship
when the government does it’.”
Nope.
While free speech does protect you from government
inteference, it does not protect you from
other potential consequences of the things
you say such as criticism, social ostracisation,
private censorship or rules and regulations
within your place of work.
Bearing: “But when it comes to political
dissent, then every individual has the right
to voice their opinion free of consequence.”
Err… nope.
I’ve no idea where you’ve got the idea
that the content of your speech somehow gives
it immunity from consequence… and that has
been your choice of words here. Not freedom
from government interference, but freedom
from consequence.
You do understand ‘consequence’ is a very
broad category which includes criticism, right?
Having both freedom of speech AND freedom
from criticism is impossible for reasons that
should be patently obvious. If you don’t
understand how that would be impossible I’m
at something of a loss as to how I would explain
it to you.
Free speech certainly does not mean freedom
from consequence… for ANY type of speech,
political or otherwise.
Freeze peach warriors often seem to think
freedom of speech somehow equates to freedom
from social ostracisation. It doesn’t.
If you routinely say things within social
situations that offend others it’s not unlikley
that you may find those people choosing to
disassociate themselves from you. You may
well find that they stop inviting you to the
pub or to dinner parties or such similar and
likewise they may well stop accepting your
invitiations to the pub or to dinner parties
or such similar.
It should be obvious, but such things have
nothing to do with government interference.
If however it were considered a violation
of free speech for people to socially ostracise
those who offend them then that very much
would be an act of government interference,
specifically a violation of people’s freedom
of association.
Free speech does not mean you get to force
people to converse with you or otherwise tolerate
your company. For this reason, someone not
inviting you to or ejecting you from a private
social event, someone blocking you on social
media, someone hanging the phone up on you
etc. etc. are not in any way shape or form
a violation of your free speech.
That doesn’t mean such things aren’t annoying,
but unless they’ve been done under instruction
from the government they aren’t a free speech
issue.
Exactly the same applies to privately funded
events such as conferences. Conference organisers
are free to lay out rules for what behaviour
is and isn’t acceptable at their events.
People who disagree with those rules are welcome
to abstain from attending and/or set up their
own conferences with their own rules that
they feel to be more appropriate.
Persephone: “Here’s the thing, let’s
say… set up a bit of a hypothetical analogy
here. Let’s say… and I’m gonna centre
it around myself… I were to go back to school,
which I need to go back to school… and my
college professor addresses the class ‘ladies
and gentlemen’ and I decide that I’m a
little too fucking sensitive that day, I don’t
know… maybe I tripped on something and hurt
my ass or something and somebody saying ‘ladies
and gentlemen’ added to the butthurt. But
let’s say that he or she, whoever my professor
is said ‘ladies and gentlemen’ and I got
all offended by it so maybe I go to my professor
and say hey y’know what, you saying ‘ladies
and gentlemen’ leaves me out. Could you
maybe say something a little more inclusive?”
This is all very long-winded so let’s skip
to the point.
Persephone: “Look. You can change people’s
language all day long, which in order to do
that, especially current state of affairs,
in order to do that you’d actually have
to infringe on people’s freedom of speech.”
It’s important to understand how employment
contracts work.
If you’re an employee, let’s say in a
shop, and you start being abusive and rude
to customers, your employer is likely to fire
you or at the very least threaten to do so
if you don’t cease this behaviour.
It’d be quite bizarre to suggest that this
would be a violation of the employee’s free
speech. When you take on any job you have
a contract of employment which will in many
ways limit your behaviour, including the sort
of things you are allowed to say in the workplace.
If you think the terms of such a contract
are unfair, you aren’t obliged to work in
said workplace and are free to pursue gainful
employment elsewhere. Unless the government
actually somehow forbid you from leaving your
job and trying to find another one, this is
not a free speech issue.
The same goes for if you are employed by a
website to write content for them. If they
don’t like the content you write for them.
They can give you the sack. This is not an
act of government interference.
Sidenote: free speech also has nothing to
do with freethought, but that’s a topic
for a different video.
Even if your employer IS the government, the
fact is you will still be entering into a
contract of employment and as such any limitations
on your speech that are a requirement of the
job in question are not a violation of your
free speech.
As Estlund explains, the deciding factor as
to what is and is not allowed in a public
sector workplace in America is whether or
not it will lead to disruption of the workplace’s
operations.
With specific reference to being a school
teacher, Renner explains that there must be
“a legitimate educational reason for the
school board's policy.”
So if the school board are of the view that
using gender inclusive language when addressing
the class is necessary to ensure all students
are equally included in the learning experience,
then I’d say that’s a legitimate educational
reason.
I’ve no doubt that arguments to the contrary
could be made, but simply dismissing it as
ridiculous and declaring it a violation of
free speech without any substantial explanation
does not an argument make.
Bearing: “I mean, here you are telling us
that bullying should not be tolerated and
that one should not be free to express themselves
if they are going to express anything that
is hurtful or hateful to anyone else.”
In the UK, the law demands that schools have
policies against bullying. Further, certain
types of bullying are illegal and this can
include name calling if it is done repeatedly.
So no, bullying is not protected under free
speech.
You’d know this if you bothered looking
it up instead of just assuming free speech
means whatever you want it to mean.
Computing Forever: “A threat to free speech
anywhere is a threat to it anywhere. Since
the EU began colluding with Facebook, Twitter,
Youtube and others to introduce hatespeech
policies, we’ve seen major censorship of
unpopular opinions across all these platforms.”
Rebecca Watson: “The best you can do is,
y’know, if you’re running a forum is to
institute very strict moderation. Who gets
in, who gets to stay. Y’know, utilise the
block button on Twitter…”
Thunderf00t: “In an instant it shows that
person’s dismissive contempt for one of
the most important aspects of modern society.
If they’re willing to throw free expression
in an open public media under the bus for
personal convenience simply because they have
that option, fuck them.”
One of the most tiresome misconceptions held
by freeze peach warriors is the belief that
being banned or blocked on social media sites
is somehow a violation of free speech.
Thunderf00t: “Places like Youtube and Twitter
are not private spaces. They are public communication
media.”
Nope. Social media sites are privately owned,
not publicly owned ie. they are not paid for
by the tax payer ergo the tax payer (by virtue
of being the tax payer) does not get to decide
how they operate.
Thunderf00t: “This is not like inviting
someone into your personal property because
we have different rules for things like property
ownership than we do for free speech. Indeed,
if you wanted a more accurate analogy…”
It’s not an analogy, it’s literally the
case. Youtube isn’t like a privately owned
website, it is a privately owned website.
Thunderf00t: “… Youtube is more like going
down to a public open space and putting your
ideas out there in the open market place of
ideas…”
No, because public spaces, by definition are
spaces that are paid for by the community
at large, therefore they are available for
the use of the public at large. Social media
sites are privately owned. As such, they are
free to operate under their own terms of service.
They don’t need to run it by the tax payer
because the tax payer isn’t funding them.
I’ll add, I find it more than a bit weird
that so many freeze peach warriors happen
to also be free market capitalists… and
by weird I mean transparently hypocritical.
If you think being banned from social media
or being sacked by a privately owned blog
site should be considered violations of a
person’s free speech, then what you’re
arguing is that somehow the government should
have the authority to intefere in such matters
and force said websites to not ban or sack
people. Yet you claim to be free market capitalists,
ie. people who believe privately owned businesses
should be able to operate with an absolute
minimum of government interference.
There are arguments that the media should
be democratised ie. publicly owned, but those
are socialist arguments, so as far as I’m
concerned unless freeze peach warriors are
going to abandon free market capitalism, I
don’t see how I could take their position
seriously.
I should add as well that if the media were
to be publicly controlled it would have to
operate in a way that served the public at
large, not just a small, noisy, angry portion
of the public who like to harass people.
In reality, conservatives already have the
majority of media platforms and they have
them precisely because of free market capitalism
so conservatives aren’t likely to ever compromise
with socialists and put the media in the hands
of the public.
But hey, you all love capitalism so much,
I’m sure you won’t mind funding, constructing
and admininstrating a social media site for
yourselves where the terms of service are
more lax than those we see on mainstream social
media.
Just be aware that if you do set up such a
site, you will still be bound by the laws
of whatever country or countries you are operating
in. For example, if you set up a website in
America, there are no hate speech laws, so
you would not fall foul of the law over there,
however, because a number of European countries
do have hate speech laws, you may well find
a lot of the content uploaded to your website
being blocked in said countries.
Also, if you want your website to be funded
by advertising, you may find that certain
companies don’t wish their products to be
associated with sites that promote and encourage
hate speech. This is certainly a problem The
Amazing Atheist ran into when he tried to
set up the first of his ill-fated websites.
If you’re the sort of person who likes to
throw around phrases like: “Either everything
is allowed or nothing is allowed” or “My
rights don’t end where your feelings begin!”
I would humbly suggest you stop using t-shirt
slogans and bumper sticker phrases as your
source of information and start looking at
some legal, political and academic writings
on the subject.
Computing Forever: “The truth is free speech
must come with no clause or caveat. If you
ever utter a phrase like, ‘I’m all for
free speech, but…’ then you’re against
free speech because you’re regressive.”
You will find that freedom of speech is not
absolute, even in America.
Libel, slander, defamation, sharing of people’s
private information without their consent,
incitement to commit crimes etc. etc. are
not protected by free speech.
There are also a number of countries in the
developed world, including the UK, that have
laws against hate speech.
CoachDave: “What is hate speech? What does
that word even mean?”
If you want to know what constitutes hate
speech and why, you could try looking it up
rather than assuming it’s an unanswerable
question.
I get the impression that when people ask
questions like this they’re assuming that
just because something is beyond their comprehension
it must therefore be beyond everyone else’s
comprehension as well.
To quote the International Covenant on Civil
and Political Rights:
“Everyone shall have the right to hold opinions
without interference.
Everyone shall have the right to freedom of
expression; this right shall include freedom
to seek, receive and impart information and
ideas of all kinds, regardless of frontiers,
either orally, in writing or in print, in
the form of art, or through any other media
of his choice.”
If you’re a conservative libertarian, you
probably think that’s that, but it goes
on:
“The exercise of the rights provided for
in paragraph 2 of this article carries with
it special duties and responsibilities. It
may therefore be subject to certain restrictions,
but these shall only be such as are provided
by law and are necessary:
(a) For respect of the rights or reputations
of others;
(b) For the protection of national security
or of public order, or of public health or
morals.
Any advocacy of national, racial or religious
hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination,
hostility or violence shall be prohibited
by law.”
Racist woman: “Go back to Si… fucking
N**geragua or wherever you come from!”
Amazing Atheist: “Anyway, the interesting
thing about this story for, aside from how
hilarious her stupidity is is that she’s
actually in trouble with the law over this…”
To quote section 18 of the Public Order Act
1986:
“A person who uses threatening, abusive
or insulting words or behaviour, or displays
any written material which is threatening,
abusive or insulting, is guilty of an offence
if—
(a) he intends thereby to stir up racial hatred,
or
(b) having regard to all the circumstances
racial hatred is likely to be stirred up thereby.
(2) An offence under this section may be committed
in a public or a private place, except that
no offence is committed where the words or
behaviour are used, or the written material
is displayed, by a person inside a dwelling
and are not heard or seen except by other
persons in that or another dwelling.”
To also quote the Racial & Religious Hatred
Act 2006:
“A person who uses threatening words or
behaviour, or displays any written material
which is threatening, is guilty of an offence
if he intends thereby to stir up religious
hatred.
An offence under this section may be committed
in a public or a private place, except that
no offence is committed where the words or
behaviour are used, or the written material
is displayed, by a person inside a dwelling
and are not heard or seen except by other
persons in that or another dwelling.”
So in short, you can sit around in your house
with your friends and talk about how you hate
black people or Muslims all you want. It’s
when you start yelling this sort of stuff
out in public that you’ll have problems.
If you’re the sort of person who thinks
that you can’t criticise Islam without being
arrested for Islamophobia, rest assured, the
same act clearly states:
“Nothing in this Part shall be read or given
effect in a way which prohibits or restricts
discussion, criticism or expressions of antipathy,
dislike, ridicule, insult or abuse of particular
religions or the beliefs or practices of their
adherents, or of any other belief system or
the beliefs or practices of its adherents,
or proselytising or urging adherents of a
different religion or belief system to cease
practising their religion or belief system.”
So, in short, you can attack the belief all
you want. The law is more concerned with you
not attacking Muslims.
There is also the Malicious Communications
Act 1988 which prohibits the sending of letters
or electronic communications which convey
“a message which is indecent or grossly
offensive,
a threat; or information which is false and
known or believed to be false by the sender”.
This is something I would advise you bear
in mind if you’re a UK citizen and you’re
planning to harass someone on Twitter.
It might surprise some people to learn that
Amnesty International, perhaps the biggest
human rights organisation on the planet actually
supports the idea of hate speech laws.
To quote them on this:
“Governments have an obligation to prohibit
hate speech and incitement. And restrictions
can also be justified if they protect specific
public interest or the rights and reputations
of others.
 
Any restrictions on free speech and freedom
of expression must be set out in laws that
must in turn be clear and concise so everyone
can understand them.
 
People imposing the restrictions (whether
they are governments, employers or anyone
else) must be able to demonstrate the need
for them, and they must be proportionate.
All of this has to be backed up by safeguards
to stop the abuse of these restrictions and
incorporate a proper appeals process.”
Amazing Atheist: “So I don’t know if what
she did was illegal. I imagine it probably
is if they arrested her for it, but what I
do know is that I don’t think it should
be illegal. I don’t think it should be illegal
to be a horrible, racist, xenophobic douchebag.
I’m the kind of guy that believes that if
the Westboro Baptist Church wants to hold
their stupid fucking signs and stand out there
like a bunch of morons they should be allowed
to, and if this bitch wants to run her mouth
on the train, she should be allowed to.”
You are of course under no obligation to agree
with Amnesty International or to agree with
the laws of the United Kingdom or of any other
country, but if you want to change the minds
of activist groups or change the law you are
going to have to do a bit more than just hurl
out the same t-shirt slogans or endlessly
quote Voltaire 
at people.
As van Mill explains: “The first thing to
note in any sensible discussion of freedom
of speech is that it will have to be limited.
Every society places some limits on the exercise
of speech because it always takes place within
a context of competing values. In this sense,
Stanley Fish is correct when he says that
there is no such thing as free speech (in
the sense of unlimited speech). Free speech
is simply a useful term to focus our attention
on a particular form of human interaction
and the phrase is not meant to suggest that
speech should never be limited.”
Laws regarding anything need to be nuanced
and applicable to a wide variety of potential
scenarios, not just scenarios you as individual
happen to find yourself in.
You also need to do something a bit more productive
than putting together pointless internet petitions.
Thank you for watching.
Comments will remain open so long as discourse
remains productive and civilised.
Seeing as I have taken the time to provide
legal, academic and other relevant citations,
I think it’s only reasonable that anyone
responding does the same.
Good bye.
