And you can't have true freedom of speech while simultaneously preventing people from being jerks and saying mean things. Surely not telling people they have freedom of speech is an absurd solution.
The consequences of legally obligating a jury to rule as the judge feels is proper are MUCH worse than any of the consequences you have described.
I mean, I don't agree with the top level comment here, but this isn't a reverse-free-speech issue. Courts are absolutely free to restrain what public officials can say.
E.g., a regulator cannot say "if you don't burn this book, we'll tax you out of existence" while a person could say "if you don't burn this book, I'll vote to have you taxed out of existence"
The best part of law and society is that we get to collectively decide if freedom of speech should be absolute. In this case, the judicial branch says no.
It's hard to imagine a place where free speech is more important than in Court testimony.
Suppressing testimony by punishing people for speaking honestly (nor merely disregarding their testimony) undermines the very foundation of thr legal system.
But that's not the question. The question is who decides, and how, what speech should have (negative) consequences. If I am reading you correctly, you are saying that you will provide consequences to those who you deem to be calling for something you do not agree with.
Another one of the most important aspect of the free society is the rule of law. Not vigilante justice.
That has to do with order. Insulting people is not considered orderly, hence the possible penalties. You can however insult people using the language twisted the right way and not pose yourself at risk. I wouldnt call this concept reduction of free speech, when in fact all it takes away is the liberty to insult someone in certain ways.
In an all or nothing system, there's no such thing as taking someone to court over defamation, because any restriction on speech is verboten.
I don't think that's quite right. If you allow any speech (which you should, IMO) that is one thing... but it's not the same thing as saying that you can't be held responsible for the outcome of your speech.
To use a different analogy... people always talk about how you can't yell "fire in a crowded theater". I would argue that it should absolutely be legal to yell "fire" in a crowded theater. And if you do so, and nothing happens, then you have committed no crime. OTOH, if you do so and a panic ensues and people are trampled to death, then you will be punished - not for yelling "fire", but for causing the panic that resulted in people being trampled to death.
It might seem like a subtle distinction, but I think it's crucial. You should never be punished for what you say (or think) but you can be punished for actually causing harm to another person (including libel/slander/defamation, etc.)
Just to be clear, the freedom of speech is not absolute. It _is_ possible to violate someone else's First Amendment rights while exercising your own, to the point where a judge or jury must decide who is at fault (if anyone) and why. The limits to free speech have been shaped over time by laws and by precedent. In this case, a jury found that Gawker went too far.
The judiciary is capable of awarding civil sanctions and damages to a private person - natural or artificial - even if those damages are on a claim on the basis of speech.
To create your version of reality, it would require a radical interpretation from the Supreme Court, or new and separate laws passed from Congress and every state and territory to limit the powers of the judicial branch.
As it stands there is no framework in this country to uphold your version of free speech. If you feel it is inadequate for the era that we live in, then sure, keep advocating for it. This has no bearing on the correctness of Yelp's pseudo-legal interpretation in their sounding board. They are equally within their right to censor their own forum, with their disproportional influence, but their rationale does not make it accurate.
Jurors are routinely forbidden from discussing the case they are trying, parties to a settlement can be barred from discussing it, etc., etc., so there are quite a bit more limitations on "free speech" than that.
It is legal in the US to yell fire in a crowded theater. It is not legal to intentionally create a false emergency situation, verbally or otherwise.
Similar to threats, it’s not the speech that is illegal but the intent to commit a crime. Like any other criminal trial, your words can be used against you.
Not sure what more you’d mean when you say “freedom from consequences” (or how this relates to the article) but youre arguing against a point no one is attempting to make it seems. None of what you’ve mentioned is what’s meant by ‘freedom of speech’.
The judiciary is capable of awarding civil sanctions and damages to a private person - natural or artificial - even if those damages are on a claim on the basis of speech.
To create your version of reality, it would require a radical interpretation from the Supreme Court, or a new and separate laws passed from Congress and every state and territory to limit the powers of the judicial branch.
As it stands there is no framework in this country to uphold your version of free speech. If you feel it is inadequate for the era that we live in, then sure, keep advocating for it. This has no bearing on the correctness of Yelp's pseudo-legal interpretation in their sounding board. They are equally within their right to censor their own forum, with their disproportional influence, but their rationale does not make it accurate.
The government already restricts speech. Libel is an obvious example. We therefore need to debate what the concept of free speech actually means and what the practical implications of the 1st Amendment are because they clearly don't mean that speech is completely unrestricted.
OP is suggesting that anyone who comes to that debate with definitions that are more restrictive than OPs should end up in prison. How is that not inherently a restriction on the speech that one can make about free speech?
I prefer to apply the principle of charity when replying to others' arguments. You chose the most uncharitable reading of my invocation of the 'silly' 'yelling fire' prohibition. Obviously I'm talking about the situation where it is false - and that is exactly my point. Not all lies or false statements are protected. There is such a thing as prohibited speech. Yelling 'fire' when there is no fire is an example of it.
Furthermore the test is whether a reasonable person believes they could telegraph intent.
The test is - if you, a reasonable person, could reasonably believe that this judge's safety is in question?
I will grant that it seems like the standard is fairly subjective, and libertarians are predictably siding with the expansive free-speech side of this argument, choosing not to read intent into something that other reasonable people might read intent into.
I tend to err on the side of personal safety given that I read these comments as probably not true threats but also not definitely false.
For what it's worth, though, I believe the sentence issued by the judge in question against Ross Ulbricht was unjust and unduly harsh and probably qualifies as cruel and unusual. Still, I don't recommend making suggestions of violence against an individual online, whether joking or not, and I don't think this is as clear cut as many are making it out to be.
Obviously can't speak for all Americans, but from where I stand free speech is an absolute right and there shouldn't be anything legally wrong with talking shit.
In my opinion laws shouldn't exist unless it can be clear to a person that they would be breaking the law beforehand. In the case of speech, laws limiting speech are full of gray areas and imprecise definitions that leave too much ambiguity. A person can very easily say something that to them doesn't feel offensive at all only to be charged later with breaking a law because someone decided after the fact that it was in fact offensive. This level gray area rarely exists for other laws, for example its clear what it means to assault someone or steal.
Out of curiosity from the other angle, why in some places is it illegal to say something bad about a person unless they can defend themselves? And who has the power to decide what is or is not legally considered talking shit?
> No, defamation laws "and such" are extremely limited in scope, for a reason. None of them stops people from "saying dumb things." It specifically DOES allow, protect, end entitle someone to "act like a dick and intentionally piss off whole subsections of society." There could be no discourse otherwise.
That doesn't make the slightest bit of sense. If I was to make up some rubbish about you (eg selling drugs to school kids), then you'd be able to take me to court over those things that I said. Thus there are limitations on freedom of speech as those laws are there to protect people like you from in situations like the aforementioned. They're not there to protect people from /SAYING/ dumb things - like you stated. The laws are there to protect the subject /AGAINST/ dumb things being said.
However that's a tangent as it was never my original point. As I'll explain next:
> You may be confusing United States law with many European nations, which have very different interpretations of speech rights. For example, in Germany it is illegal to advocate for NeoNazism. In the United States, it is perfectly legal, even though it fits all of your "disallowed" criteria.
I'm not confusing any laws here. You're misunderstanding me as you're talking purely from a legal perspective where as I'm talking about social obligation. A rather crude example would be gun laws in the US. A large number of people are calling for guns to be banned because a small minority chose to abuse their right to own a gun. Sure, they broke other laws (just as people who abuse their free speech might break defamation (et al) laws). And just like with free speech, we have a moral obligation not to dilute our freedom of speech with mindless hatred as otherwise we might see such rights taken away "for our own benefit". In fact we are seeing this already with idiots who post dumb comments on Twitter getting arrested. They set a precedence where the police can intervene, which makes it easier for police and "do gooders" to take action in future times when circumstances might not be so extreme. And we've seen it with the pressure that Facebook face to sensor the messages left on there because of a meme going out of hand.
Sometimes having freedoms is as much about knowing when not to abuse it as it is about knowing when to exercise your freedoms. Which is why I say great power comes great responsibility. Just because someone legally can do something, it doesn't mean that they should.
The lines in law, where they exist, tend to be fuzzy, rather than fine.
Now with that said freedom of speech is a special law. And obviously one that cuts both ways. But a key reason why the law should largely exist untampered is that even if you say something I think is offensive, I can rely on a few things:
1) If it's absurd it will be discarded by most people.
2) If it's absurd those people it would convince, probably
already believe it.
3) With freedom of speech I can argue the point prior to irreversible damage.
Now there are some cases where freedom of speech don't apply and those are generally cases where the three points above don't apply. For example, the classic of yelling "Fire" in a crowded room. Someone else yelling, "there is no fire" is not likely to be heard and even if "Fire" is seemingly absurd, most people may not discard due to potential harm. Yada yada.
But outside of cases that violate the above, the law should stand. Otherwise the consequences, shutting down opposing speech, will almost certainly be worse.
Genuinely curious: Do you believe that there are no limits to free speech, nor any scenarios in which, without prior censorship, you may say something that is illegal?
What I described enables someone to publish lies that actively harm a second person, but then the first person gets fined / jailed for it. Do you think this is reasonable? Or that the sanctity of free speech should protect that first person, and impose on third people the effort and responsibility of determining whether what was said about the second person is fact or lie?
The consequences of legally obligating a jury to rule as the judge feels is proper are MUCH worse than any of the consequences you have described.
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