Some other legal restrictions on communication that aren't normally included in the "free speech" debate:<p>* Distributing pirated media/breaking copyright or trademarks<p>* Slander and libel laws<p>* HIPAA and medical information privacy laws<p>* Sharing information for insider trading<p>* Market manipulation by sharing false or misleading information<p>* Breaching attorney-client privilege<p>* Laws governing how jurors are allowed to communicate<p>* FCC and obscenity laws in US media<p>* Distribution of illegal porn (for various definitions of illegal)<p>* Holocaust denial laws in Canada and Europe<p>* US anti-boycott provisions that ban "furnishing information" about doing business with certain countries<p>* Military and government classified information (thanks rmc!)<p>There are many others. The point is we're always a bit selective about what counts as free speech, and there are lots of exceptions, some very well motivated.<p>These articles about "free speech is in danger" seem to be unnecessarily abstract: if you want to discuss the problems with Islam or the merits of social justice or whatever, don't argue about the way you're having the debate, just have the debate. Because our society doesn't really view free speech as a consistent principle anyway.
I don't know, islamic terror in particular seems to stand out from the rest. I mean, china, or the mexican drug lords are directly defending their interests. Islamic terror is not, it's revenge against a nebulous 'enemy' that they are being forced to tolerate (terrorists are not defending the honor of the peaceful muslims (who wouldnt even read charlie hebdo); instead they are trying to radicalize them).<p>> he could not live “in any country where free speech is allowed”<p>There is something to be said about incompatibility of certain cultures here.
Why is Economist pushing the narrative that Innocence of Muslims had anything to do with the embassy attack and murder of the US Ambassador in Libya when that cover story was completely debunked?
Fascinating and terrifying at the same time. Glad to see the article mention the more civilized cases of free speech suppression such as the Yale one, in addition to the really gruesome and macabre ones across the world. We should prevent a death by a thousand cuts if possible AND obviously do something about the brutality in other parts of the world.
There's a glaring omission in the Economist's articles on free speech: the effort to criminalize BDS activism. [1]<p>[1] <a href="https://theintercept.com/2016/02/16/greatest-threat-to-free-speech-in-the-west-criminalizing-activism-against-israeli-occupation/" rel="nofollow">https://theintercept.com/2016/02/16/greatest-threat-to-free-...</a>
Disturbing thought, I wonder if free speech is only politically feasible under the assumption of limited distribution. If we look at free speech two decades ago, the two ways of enjoying free speech were, you could convince an editor, or you could copy a few hundred leaflets and distribute them by hand. The first case limits the distribution to people who buy the newspaper (or who buy from that publisher, there's a reason that explicitly Anarchist bookshops are a thing) and the second limits both the numbers and the geographic distribution.<p>Today anybody can, at least in principle, overcome these limitations just by getting a youtube account, with the effect that for all X, group X is constantly confronted with vile hatred. The effect is, everybody is pissed off, while only groups which are explicitly pro freedom of speech tell themselves that they have to live with the trolls.<p>The idea is, that as long as freedom of speech was limited by the practicalities of distribution to a, for most people, tolerable level, everybody was happy to endorse free speech. Nowadays it is no longer constrained by distribution and people start to revisit their assumptions about free speech.
Relevant link:<p>Andrew Cuomo and Other Democrats Launch Severe Attack on Free Speech to Protect Israel<p><a href="https://theintercept.com/2016/06/06/andrew-cuomo-and-other-democrats-launch-severe-attack-on-free-speech-to-protect-israel/" rel="nofollow">https://theintercept.com/2016/06/06/andrew-cuomo-and-other-d...</a>
It's interesting that many who advocate a "free speech über alles" approach have a curious exemption for property rights. They claim the right of Facebook/Twitter/reddit/etc. as privacy companies to control their property (i.e. their websites) apparently trump right to free speech. An earlier free speech article also from the Economist, which is linked from the sidebar[1], claims that private companies should be exempted from free speech rules, and should be allowed to publish, or not publish, anything they want.<p>Should Facebook's property rights overrule my free speech rights?<p>[1] <a href="http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21699909-curbs-free-speech-are-growing-tighter-it-time-speak-out-under-attack" rel="nofollow">http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21699909-curbs-free-sp...</a>
Measuring progress is hard.<p>100 years ago, a person in the wrong place in the United States who happened to say something someone else didn't like might end up getting murdered by a mob.<p>I guess that is getting to be a long time ago, but history should not be viewed with a tight lens.
US attacks on whistleblowers are not mentioned. US religious ’fatwahs’ against abortion doctors aren’t mentioned, but much is made of Muslim misbehavior.<p>Kind of a bad article. It also doesn’t mention anything about UK slander laws.
What we will see more and more in America is the privatization of all "public" utilities and services (schools->charter, Libraries-->?). This will enable and allow these non-public corporations to enact and enforce censorship. Since the "free" speech applies mostly to our Government interactions, it won't apply to "private" corporate institutions. They will be outside of the constitution of the US.<p>America must wake up to what is happening. It's not too late.<p>We Americans must always be able to speak our minds no matter how offensive, true or false. But we must also never harm ourselves or each other. This should also apply to Government and Corporations. We must always hold those in "power" accountable for their actions public or private.<p>Peace
This "right not to be offended" a part of the article is talking about is such a Trojan horse. Groups are not claiming a right not to be offended, they are claiming the right to feel "mortally" offended, giving them leverage to pursue goals often not that much related to the original act of offending speech.<p>Since it is the offended who get to define what offends them, the term "right, not to be offended" falls quite short of the actual problem. Everybody already is perfectly free to not feel offended by anything. This right is a given, everywhere. So the only thing remaining to claim is the right to declare stuff as offending at will and force those decisions on others.
It's really hard to say how our world will look in the coming decades...<p>On one hand, we have all this explosively liberating technology, cheap and powerful, that is changing the way we communicate and share information. On the other hand, you see the 'natural' result of all this power moving towards the individual: states and governments gripping tighter than ever to control it and maintain their elevated status.<p>It serves to illustrate how asinine our arguments over 'appropriate' speech are. The result of any kind of forced censorship is the same no matter what the content of the speech is : less freedom.
Canada has blasphemy laws [1]? I knew they had "hate speech" laws which basically meant that they could prosecute you for saying anything that some might find offensive but I had no idea about blasphemy.<p>Scary.<p>[1] <a href="http://cdn.static-economist.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/original-size/images/print-edition/20160604_IRM900.png" rel="nofollow">http://cdn.static-economist.com/sites/default/files/imagecac...</a>
The problem with the free speech debate is everyone has a different definition or understanding of what free speech is.<p>Free speech should be considered the right to publically criticise and call to account governments, police, judiciary and other state institutions.<p>It should not mean the right to say absolutely anything to anybody. Having laws on racism and hate speech (for example) provide well-meaning guidance on acceptable behaviour within civilised society and help reduce discrimination, bias etc.<p>But like all rights "free speech" confers privilege and responsibility on the holder: just because you have a right to doesn't mean you should (e.g the video referenced at the beginning of the article).
In my opinion, free speech only applies to the state as the state is not a product you can decide not to use such as Facebook and Twitter (from which you do not need free speech protection), that is the fundamental difference.<p>People should face no punishment other than the potential scorn of the public for their words. Say whatever you want, but be prepared to take disapproval for it.<p>Edit: I don't know how to explain what I said earlier but apparently I didn't get my point across so I'm going to remove it.
American free speech as we know it is effectively dead with the replacement of just a couple of Supreme Court Justices.<p>We are that close to it being gone. 2016 is the most important year in the history of this country, I am thoroughly convinced of that.
Several people are currently in jail without trial for making non-specific verbal or written threats against schools in the USA.<p>One could play devil's-advocate and argue that is free-speech since the threat is non-specific and no actual action was taken.<p>Using that same logic however, insulting a religion specifically to demonstrate/cause violent reaction should trigger a per-emptive jail term without trial in the USA?<p>But now you've got me defending an abrahamic religion, I feel like I need to take a shower to get clean.
The behavior pattern described is basically the collision of honour culture (belief in retribution) and victimhood culture (easily taking offense).<p><a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/272408166_Microaggression_and_Moral_Cultures" rel="nofollow">https://www.researchgate.net/publication/272408166_Microaggr...</a>
How did such an anti-freespeech, "islam=murder" promoting article made it to the front page? And is the economist always so traditional, right wingy?<p>I have to say I'm a little shocked of what I'm reading here.