Comment by drinka40tonight on 30/01/2025 at 22:55 UTC

34 upvotes, 1 direct replies (showing 1)

View submission: Should we have freedom of hate speech?

There's been lots written here. The SEP is a good place to look: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/freedom-speech/[1] and previous version: https://plato.stanford.edu/archIves/win2023/entries/freedom-speech/[2]

1: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/freedom-speech/

2: https://plato.stanford.edu/archIves/win2023/entries/freedom-speech/

There's also an SEP on hate speech: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/hate-speech/

Ira Glasser, former executive director of the ACLU, outlined in a recent popular piece his rationale for defending a strong legal stance of pro-free speech: https://www.spiked-online.com/2023/01/21/why-we-must-fight-for-the-right-to-hate/

Here's a Philosophy Compass paper that provides a look at some of the issues and recent thought: "Freedom of expression":

This article surveys the classic and contemporary literature on the nature and limits of freedom of expression (or free speech). It begins by surveying the main philosophical justifications for free speech, before moving to consider the two most discussed topics in the free speech literature: hate speech and pornography. The article offers some brief reflections on the large number of arguments which have been offered on these topics. Three newer battlegrounds for free speech are examined at the end: no platforming, fake news and online shaming.

https://compass.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/phc3.12759

Replies

Comment by Puzzleheaded_Pie8409 at 31/01/2025 at 00:03 UTC

-26 upvotes, 2 direct replies

I find Ira Glasser's article very unconvincing. Her argument seems to boil down to a slippery slope where if you restrict the intolerant from speaking it would restrict the first amendment, which may backfire and allow the intolerant to further restrict rights when they get into power.

I find this unconvincing because the legal justification for hate speech laws in the US is akin to restricting speech like yelling fire in a theater. It may lead to the violation of others' rights due to the effect of the speech. Besides, her point that you have to platform hateful speech to protect against it is just wrong. There is empirical evidence showing that banning Nazism and other hate speech greatly slows its ability to spread.