A good saying I heard recently is that the first amendment doesn’t exist to protect the speech you like, it exists to protect the speech you hate.
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“I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” — Voltaire
More like Evelyn Beatrice Hall
Thank you for that, I'll update my database.
"That famous quote, "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it," isn't actually by Voltaire, but was written about him by Evelyn Beatrice Hall in her 1906 book The Friends of Voltaire, summarizing his views on free speech, though he strongly championed it, notes the BBC and Quote Investigator."
No. It serves as a defense for people to criticize government. Its why I can insult and talk terrible of president Turnip (spit) and not fear the gulag.
People who 'advocate' for threats, assault, or death of people should never be permitted. Like, for example, Kiwi Farms. They've advocated for online bullying, threats, and ended up getting a bunch of people killed.
I disagree. The core of freedom of speech is freedom of thought, conscience and belief, without fear of retaliation, censorship, or legal sanction. Die Gedanken sind frei is older and more fundamental than the right to criticize the government.
Threats, assault, and murder is different since they represent real and substantial harm that is universal recognized. Thoughts are permitted, but the acts are not, which include threats. The line between thoughts and threats might be fuzzy, but the distinction is not.
The legal question around Kiwi Farms has nothing to do with freedom of speech and everything to do with the legal theory of assisting, and platform liability.
Even if that was true (it's not), freedom of speech is still more important than a few peoples lives
that site routinely indulges in slander and defamation of its subjects .. which are civil rather than criminal matters .. nonetheless, not 1a forms of protected speech unless it has the affirmative defense of being truthful.
in some cases it hosts published content that is criminal on paper (federally: non consensual intimate images under take it down act, or state charges: PII under californias anti doxing law just to name one. There are others), this simply has not been enforced or litigated successfully, nor defended on strictly 1a grounds yet.
So far it has racked up multiple successful defenses hiding behind section 230, not 1a.
There have been a couple of incidents where someone may have had standing to sue a poster (on any of the aforementioned grounds) who “could not” be identified. [0]
At the present time 230 keeps KF itself from being a defendant.
[0] The same guy who tells cops and courts that he shreds his logs after 30 days somehow finds a way to call out a user who has exclusively been using Tor for two years, (oh. Now he has logs going back several years.) but I digress.
Well there’s an opinion not to take too far...
If you don't fear the gulag, you're not paying attention. He routinely attempts to put his political enemies in jail.
Oh I'm paying attention. But I also stay quiet publicly. Speaking out is a way to get the hammer.
Theres different ways to protest. Being an obvious target isn't what I do.
> No. It serves as a defense for people to criticize government. It's why I can insult and talk terrible of president Turnip (spit) and not fear the gulag.
> Theres different ways to protest. Being an obvious target isn't what I do.
How do you reconcile those two statements?
Think of https://www.cia.gov/static/5c875f3ec660e092cf893f60b4a288df/...
Pay close attention to section "General Interference with Organizations and Production" pages 28-32.
The point is that your statements here are completely contradictory. First you say:
> "Its why I can insult and talk terrible of president Turnip (spit) and not fear the gulag."
But then you say:
> "But I also stay quiet publicly. Speaking out is a way to get the hammer."
In other words, you're afraid to exercise your first amendment rights. You feel that you can't, in fact "insult and talk terrible of president Turnip" without unacceptable consequences.
I said it in the other comment to him.
He is lying or suffering cognitive dissonance.
You cannot rectify his statements in another way, beyond the third option that calls his mental faculties into question.
I’m giving him the benefit of the doubt and assuming he’s mentally all there, but that leads to my aforementioned options for them.
He is lying or suffering cognitive dissonance.
A lot of people get angry when I call out people as liars, but sometimes these people are just fucking lying to everyone and you have to call a spade a spade.
Not necessarily. According to the Supreme Court, "implicit in the history of the First Amendment is the rejection of obscenity as utterly without redeeming social importance".
That seems asinine to me, and it's just one in a long line of reasons to hold the court in utter contempt. But they're in charge and I'm not.
> That seems asinine to me
Until you realize that child pornography would be protected by the First Amendment without obscenity carved out.
The Miller Test is what defines obscenity, and it seems pretty reasonable to me: is it about gross sex according to the average person (not the most Karen person), and does it lack serious literary, political, scientific, or artistic merit.
Honestly, I'm not aware of a Supreme Court case that held something to be obscene that was IMO wrongly decided. Pornography is fine. Even lolicon (cartoon sex of children) has been protected under the First Amendment and not deemed obscene.
The problem with opening the "which obscene is protected" door is that it gives the government (presumed to be correct in judgement by default) too much power. See Bush W admin's leaning on credit card processors to freeze out content they didn't like.
If a Miller bargain must be struck, then "not allowing pornography to be exposed to minors (and no other limits for everyone else)" seems a better line.
Then putting some safeguards in around what can and cannot be used as an age test in order to maximally preserve privacy (e.g. independent, non-government company, no identifiable information persisted, non-id verification options, etc) and what constitutes pornography (and what isn't).
I'm a free-speech maximalist, but "porn for kids" is a tough hill to die on. Even if there are sound technical reasons why that should be allowed, there are too many social ones to make that the all-in bet in a democracy.
Production of child pornography is illegal even without obscenity laws
That doesn't criminalize possession, and arguably there's a compelling interest to do that. But I hate the dance that lawyers do, pretending to legal rigor while simultaneously carving out exceptions that the text cannot justify.