this post was submitted on 27 Feb 2024
100 points (98.1% liked)

News

23259 readers
3164 users here now

Welcome to the News community!

Rules:

1. Be civil


Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.


2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.


Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. We have an actively updated blocklist, which you can see here: https://lemmy.world/post/2246130 if you feel like any website is missing, contact the mods. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.


3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.


Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.


4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.


Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.


5. Only recent news is allowed.


Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.


6. All posts must be news articles.


No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.


7. No duplicate posts.


If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.


8. Misinformation is prohibited.


Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.


9. No link shorteners.


The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.


10. Don't copy entire article in your post body


For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
top 14 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 41 points 8 months ago (3 children)

Hate speech is an explicit threat and should not count as free speech. It is very clear what someone saying bigoted things would do if they could get away with it.

[–] AuroraZzz@lemmy.world 26 points 8 months ago (1 children)
[–] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 20 points 8 months ago (1 children)

You don't even need to cite the paradox of tolerance. Explicit threats are already deemed not to be covered by the First Amendment. It's pretty hard to argue that hate speech is not an explicit threat.

[–] GregorGizeh@lemmy.zip 13 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Its not even a paradox really. Tolerance is a social contract. If a party violates it through intolerance they are no longer covered by this mutual agreement.

[–] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 8 points 8 months ago (2 children)

Agreed, but I'm not sure what a better name for the concept would be and a lot of people really need to understand it.

I am so sick of assholes saying, "you lefties are supposed to be tolerant!" when called out on their bigotry.

[–] CaractacusPotts@lemmy.ca 4 points 8 months ago (1 children)

People who say that confuse liberals with the left.

[–] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 5 points 8 months ago

They also don't understand what tolerance is.

[–] GregorGizeh@lemmy.zip 2 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

I’d probably just rename it more descriptively: The Contract of Tolerance

[–] pearsaltchocolatebar@discuss.online 7 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

Also, the first amendment doesn't restrict them from trespassing you.

You can say almost whatever you want , you just can't do it wherever you want.

[–] FireTower@lemmy.world 4 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Time and place restrictions are permissible in certain circumstances but I think you'd have a hard time applying that in a court of law towards a town hall meeting during the public comment period.

Disturbing the peace laws exist. I'm sure whatever jurisdiction he's in has laws that would cover kicking him out.

[–] LibertyLizard@slrpnk.net 6 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

I largely agree with this and in the context of the extremely broad conception of free speech under the Constitution it is an important critique.

However, I think we also need to be thoughtful and careful in how we define hate speech. I am worried that as this idea becomes more popular, some valid and even important speech might get inappropriately labeled as hate speech. A current example is critiques of Israeli military violence being labeled as antisemitic. If we ban hate speech, will it be used to silence those who speak out against similar atrocities? How do we keep the concept of hate speech narrowly defined to the speech that is most likely to cause physical harm?

[–] ArbitraryValue@sh.itjust.works 4 points 8 months ago

This reminds me of the controversy around whether or not Trump was allowed to block people on Twitter when he was president. Some people were saying that as a public official, he had no right to do that. I don't recall whether there was any authoritative legal decision about it one way or another...


I consider myself a free-speech absolutist. I think even terrible people saying terrible things have the right to express themselves. However, I think banning these people from city council meetings doesn't infringe on their right to express themselves at all. They can still speak freely to anyone who wants to listen.

The city council meeting is for the benefit of the council members and they should be free to decide which speech is useful for them to hear and which isn't. There's no more reason for them to listen to everyone who wants to talk than there is for them to read letters from everyone who wants to write to them. (It would be silly to make them read every letter if they wanted to read any letter.)

The meeting does serve a secondary purpose of allowing participants to address each other rather than the council members, but this is IMO incidental and preventing it does not limit anyone's freedom of expression - they can still talk in public if they want to.

Edit: accidentally deleted my own post.

[–] ArbitraryValue@sh.itjust.works 2 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

This reminds me of the controversy around whether or not Trump was allowed to block people on Twitter when he was president. Some people were saying that as a public official, he had no right to do that. I don't recall whether there was any authoritative legal decision about it one way or another...


I consider myself a free-speech absolutist. I think even terrible people saying terrible things have the right to express themselves. However, I think banning these people from city council meetings doesn't infringe on their right to express themselves at all. They can still speak freely to anyone who wants to listen.

The city council meeting is for the benefit of the council members and they should be free to decide which speech is useful for them to hear and which isn't. There's no more reason for them to listen to everyone who wants to talk than there is for them to read letters from everyone who wants to write to them. (It would be silly to make them read every letter if they wanted to read any letter.)

The meeting does serve a secondary purpose of allowing participants to address each other rather than the council members, but this is IMO incidental and preventing it does not limit anyone's freedom of expression - they can still talk in public if they want to.