The Phrase 'Reasonable Compromise' Should Not Be Part Of Any 'Free Speech' Discussion
from the congress-shall-make-no-law dept
Pretty stunning to see L. Gordon Crovitz, the former publisher of the WSJ (and now a columnist) make the argument that shutting down social media is fine and dandy, if governments say that it's to stop bad stuff (as defined by those governments). Specifically, he defends UK politicians calling for blocks on social media in response to the London riots. Crovitz's reasoning isn't just weak, it's full of bizarre logical fallacies.But all uses of technology are not equally virtuous. Enthusiasm for technology should not lead to a moral and political relativism that confuses crime with free speech and the British police with authoritarian governments.No one has claimed that the two are the same. The point, which seems to sail way, way, way over Crovitz' head, is that the ability to block communications in one case quite easily leads to it being used in the other. Bizarrely, Crovitz then defends the highly questionable BART cell service shutdown in response to the threat of protesters, by saying it's fine because "the world did not end."
And the world did not end when police did indeed temporarily shut down social media. This happened last week in San Francisco, Calif., one of America's most liberal cities.Last I checked, the Constitution of the United States says, "Congress shall make no law... abridging the freedom of speech." It does not say, "Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech... but it can if the world won't end from doing so." From there, Crovitz just gets weird:
Permitting peaceful protests while stopping violence seems like a reasonable compromise.Let's be clear: when discussing the First Amendment, the phrase "reasonable compromise" generally means someone taking away your rights. The problem, which Crovitz can't seem to get his head around, is that you can't set up a system that properly determines what speech is allowed and what speech is violence-inducing. People who trample on the First Amendment assume, falsely, that it's easy to tell one form of speech from another. If someone is committing violence, arrest them for committing violence. Don't take away their free speech rights.
From there, Crovitz insists that China's free speech trampling is different. Why? Because it is! Don't you see? The problem is that it's very much in the eye of the beholder. China continues to insist that its trampling of free speech is a "reasonable compromise" because it keeps "bad stuff" away from the people. How do you determine where that line is? Crovitz pretends its easy. Our founding fathers knew that it was not, which is why they specifically wanted to make sure that "dangerous speech" was allowed.
Then Crovitz jumps into obnoxious false dichotomy territory:
Robert Andrews, a reporter for the paidcontent:UK website, asked Twitter users whether they would prefer to keep the service available so they could chat about the television music competition "The X Factor" or let the service be closed temporarily "so that fellow citizens like shopkeepers need not be assaulted, have their property and premises pilfered and trashed, and so that they need not live in fear."Or perhaps the people responding to Andrews recognized the ridiculousness of the question, and knew damn well, that social media is used for a hell of a lot more than discussing some TV show... and that allowing communications platforms to be shut down, because the government and Crovitz think "bad stuff" might happen, is a path to censorship. It's not that people are "addicted to electronic communications." It's that people believe in their rights to free speech. Taking away social media wouldn't stop London from burning, but it might harm some pretty core principles of democracy and the ability to speak your mind.
Though it was an admittedly unscientific survey, Mr. Andrews nevertheless reports that every Twitter respondent opted for "The X Factor." He concludes: "So addicted are we to our electronic connections, we simply cannot bear to be parted, for even an hour or two, in the name of public safety while London burns."
Techno-utopians would like to believe that digital technology is always a force for good, but technology can also accelerate evil. As Thomas Hobbes would say, without the enforcement of rules for ordered liberty, life is "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short," both in the real world and online.And since we're doing a grand tour of logical fallacies, Crovitz closes with a claim that is simply unsubstantiated because it's false. I've never heard the folks normally associated with "techno-utopianism" ever claim that digital technology is always a force for good. In fact, I've almost always heard them claim that technology itself is neutral and can be used for both good and bad. If anything, people tend to note that it can help amplify both good and bad uses. But the point that they make is that you can't somehow cherry pick the "good" stuff to allow and the "bad" stuff to ban, because that always fails in the long run. It always leads to greater than "reasonable" censorship and always leads to important critical speech being stifled. Crovitz may have no problem with trampling on the rights of others. I, on the other hand, have serious problems with it -- and with the WSJ advocating what appears to be flat out censorship.
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Filed Under: compromise, free speech, l. gordon crovitz, riots, social media
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Censorship
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Interesting notion of compromise you have there, Mr. Crovitz.
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Preaching to the choir
How's this for a "reasonable compromise"? I'll keep using the tools I have at my disposal, you can go bother people who actually do wrong.
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Re: Preaching to the choir
Unfortunately, yes we do at times. (Read: Fireworks bans in some states)
I miss the days when I used to be able to celebrate July 4th with some good old outdoor fireworks in my (nanny) state.
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I'm not defending BART, but I don't think that they were doing it simply because "OMGZ FREE SPECHE R BADZ" either. But irresponsible is irresponsible, nanny statism isn't going to stop that.
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Massachusetts (H.3372) and New York (A 1102) both have bills in committee which would allow municipalities to issue permits authorizing citizens to use most fireworks.
That would leave New Jersey and Delaware as the only states banning fireworks. So, take heart. :)
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I actually laughed at that. It is so ridiculously over the top and stupid that I have a hard time believing anyone would mean that question seriously. Let's ask another question: Should Mr. Crovitz be allowed to continue his absurd writing or should we throw him in shark-infested waters so that fellow citizens may be allowed to live without the specter of censorship and totalitarianism.
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People are obsessed with where their next meal comes from.
People are obsessed with making sure they will have a roof over their head.
People are obsessed with sex.
People are obsessed with the size of . . . . um, er . . . oh, nevermind.
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You know the stations rolling endless coverage of a fire, over and over and over. Telling people how horrible the rioting was and getting everyone worked up.
Shouldn't the media be able to be shut down as a reasonable compromise to protect things?
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And the world did not end when Hitler rounded up all the Jews because they were a threat to the nation.
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Masnick, get these people off of your side, quick! They're making you all look like a bunch of inept baffoons!
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"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." -- Benjamin Franklin
"The greatest tyrannies are always perpetrated in the name of the noblest causes." -- Thomas Paine
Meanwhile, more of my descendants(Native Americans) were slaughtered at the hands of the U.S. government than Jews by Hitler. Millions more.
Move the hell on.
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[i]Meanwhile, more of my descendants(Native Americans) were slaughtered[/i][...]
It's lovely to meet you, time traveler! Is it also true in your time that when correcting someone's spelling or grammar, you will often make a spelling or grammar mistake within that very correction?
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I'm glad that freetards and folks who love their Facebook make light of the holocaust and spelling errors. It shows they have no real arguments and are just throwing temper tantrums.
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While I don't 'make light' of your ancestors' slaughter, I sure as hell don't act like mine were the only ones, like, well, a certain group of people seem want to do.
I will make errors, but at least I will admit them.
And, apparently unlike you, I will move on.
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I did make a spelling error. It happens. I don't grade posts around here so I don't look for those sorts of mistakes.
The Jews aren't my ancestors. I don't trust the dirty bastards. I just don't think they should have been slaughtered like that.
There have been many people slaughtered over the course of human history. Maybe you people can start talking about the white man killing the red man instead of Hitler killing the Jews. That would at least shake things up a bit.
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And did you really just make a bigoted comment?
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Besides, those atrocities you are so angry about happened after they started as potentially innocuous and harmless statements from a well known figure. And maybe, just maybe, if Twitter was there and what was being done by Hitler and his minions was actually openly and widely discussed the Germans would have turned against the Government and further atrocities could have been prevented.
So chill out and keep your righteous moralism to yourself.
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P.S. Do you see the irony of you saying that those platforms should remain open for speech no matter what and then telling me to shut the hell up?
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Actually, *you* are the one who invoked Godwin's law. Merely mentioning Hitler, Nazis and/or Jews invokes nothing but Hitler, Nazis and/or Jews.
You invoked the law when you used it to criticize the mention of Hitler.
So now I have to ask, what is with you people invoking Godwin's Law every time someone says anything about a Nazi? You act like that Godwin guy was some delphic oracle on high and the fact that he made some comment years ago and self-proclaimned it a 'law' means that no one can ever legitimately refer to the Third Reich ever again.
It's become a lame and pathetic anthem of internet douches everywhere to start railing about Godwin every time a Nazi comes up in conversation.
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Now, on to the meat of things: I believe that the Nazi reference is over the top in this particular case by a lot. I will sit on the sidelines for discussion about whether shutting down the most popular communication tools on the internet is a good or bad thing. I just come here to troll obvious idiots.
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You come here to troll yourself? How bizarre.
Do not ask for whom the troll trolls. It trolls for he.
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If things were ever headed for another round of the world's greatest atrocities, people commenting on it would be responded to with replies of Godwin's law.
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An inalienable right cannot be compromised.
Reasonable or otherwise.
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FTFY
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better comparison
oh, wait, that just sounds crazy. how about we just let everyone keep their rights?
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So, if the service had been stopped, then the gangs of rabid youths around the corner from the local shop, armed with all manner of dangerous weapons, would have looked at their phones, looked at each other and then quietly gone home.
Yeah. That makes sense.
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Shouting fire in a crowded theater, threats of violence, incitement to violence, defamation, prank calling 911, etc. are all exceptions to the First Amendment that represent reasonable compromises.
If you think reasonableness should not be employed when determining the boundaries of free speech, then I question your ability to reason.
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Reasonableness is to go after the individuals doing bad things -- WEATHER OR NOT they used Twitter, etc.
Arguing that shutting down Twitter is reasonable is actually unreasonable and prohibiting freedom of speech, association and maybe in some sense, assembly.
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I think that is stupid. It is not an argument over what the reasonable compromise should be (go after the individuals or Twitter), but whether reasonableness should ever enter the conversation.
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Says you. I happen to think a prohibition against, e.g., shouting "fire!" in a crowded theater is a reasonable compromise.
"As established by Supreme Court precedence, the rights of the few (or one) always outweigh the wants and "needs" of the many."
Um...I'd like to see the citation for that little nugget.
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The decision was Schenck v United States in 1919, and Mr Justice Holmes delivered the opinion of the court.
The charges were two counts of conspiracy, and an unlawful use of the mails.
The defendants, Schenck and Baer, had printed up about fifteen or sixteen thousand leaflets. Quoting the description of these leaflets from the opinion:
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It still represents a reasonable compromise on what type of speech may be prohibited by government.
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You're absolutely right. Luckily, that has nothing to do with what I'm saying.
You are arguing about whether this particular compromise (should we shut down a tool that might be used for bad things?) is reasonable or good, NOT whether we should reject reasonable compromises out of hand, always, no matter what, when it comes to free speech issues.
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That can happen in a matter of days or weeks, except for the appeals part.
I'll change my answer from "sound good" to "sounds ridiculous" based on your further description and my further attention to the appeals bit.
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Re-read Schenck v United States. No matter how powerful Holme's analogy, the facts of the case make that opinion a disgrace to the nation.
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The world wouldn't end after all.
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Exactly. You can't reason with an unreasonable person.
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Police state is coming
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How is
Anyway, I just can't make the logical leap from shutting down a service to a first amendment violation. As I said, blocking specific expressions in tweets would be a violation of free speech rights. Stopping them altogether is not. At least to my thinking.
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Re: How is
As long as you are in isolation, you may have unlimited free speech.
Attempt to use technology, of any kind, to interact with others, and it is "reasonable" to isolate you so that nobody else can hear your free speech.
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The technology in and of itself is not the speech. Locking the doors of a Business Depot at night does not suddenly limit free speech until morning (because nobody can photocopy). The lack of access to technology isn't in itself a limit on free speech.
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No. I wouldn't. But I would say it is a violation if the government forced a newspaper to stop operations without due process because it thought that some criminals used the personal ads to set up a violent action.
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Twitter can shut down to stop whatever it wants, whenever it wants.
The State cannot shut down Twitter to stop certain communications when the medium is used for limitless other communications.
Please tell me you see the legal, Constitutional difference. Please, oh please.
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I think I see the altruistic point of view but I don't know that I can agree with it entirely. As someone said earlier, when weighing the consequences, even if on simple terms, it seems reasonable to stop a particular medium if that medium is contributing to some sort of widespread violence.
Then again, this is a case of a few bad apples spoiling the whole barrel. Is it OK to remove the privilege (not the right) to tweet from everyone when just a few people are using it to incite bad behavior? It's a tough question to answer without soap-boxing one way or the other. I'm picking on Twitter but obviously the debate extends to all forms of social media.
To be realistic, if shutting down social media during social unrest was proven to be an effective deterrent I would support it whether the government forced it or the service provider did it voluntarily. But I also agree that's a slippery slope. It's a tough one.
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But you can't have the State dictating a shutdown for content-based reasons, especially where the medium itself is completely, 100% content-neutral. That may seem reasonable to you, or even arguable, but it's completely unconstitutional--and so, as a matter of law, it's unreasonable in this country.
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It starts small...
To a Muslim extremist... blowing up a building full of people is fine... because it's for a "good" reason.
When China censors everything that it's people see, they say it's for a "good" reason...
Even Nazi Germany did things for a "good" reason.
And because it may not directly affect us at that very moment, we sit back and accept it... until suddenly, they're using the same law to prosecute us for something "good" that we're doing.
Just a reminder from Niemöller back on January 6, 1946:
When the Nazis came for the communists,
I remained silent;
I was not a communist.
When they locked up the social democrats,
I remained silent;
I was not a social democrat.
When they came for the trade unionists,
I did not speak out;
I was not a trade unionist.
When they came for the Jews,
I remained silent;
I wasn't a Jew.
When they came for me,
there was no one left to speak out.
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Free speech zones
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Re: Free speech zones
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Crovitz and Leviathan
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- I think that this sentence fragment should properly read:
" and with the Fox Street Journal (FSJ) advocating what appears to be flat out censorship."
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1A
> which is why they specifically wanted to
> make sure that "dangerous speech" was allowed.
Indeed. The very fact that the 1st Amendment is prefaced by the phrase "Congress shall make no law..." indicates the absolute protection they intended to give speech in America.
Nowhere else in the Constitution do you find such a bold and forceful limitation on government power, not even in the other amendments which make up the Bill of Rights.
And yet somehow in the 200+ years since the document was inked, our courts and legislators have found a myriad different ways in which "Congress shall make no law..." can be interpreted to mean, "The goverment can make many laws".
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Everyone seems to accept restrictions on cell phone usage in hospitals and on aircraft because of safety concerns. Nobody seems to be complaining that their 1st amendment rights are being trampled in those situations. Why not extend that reasoning to situations where public safety is of concern?
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When the State decides that, based on a communication's content, that communication should be curtailed--well, then, you have a Constitutional violation. The reason for the Twitter shutdown is expressly to stop certain communications based on their content. Thus: unconstitutional.
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well
As to Facebook and twitter, hell they keep records of all the twits that go out, and posts and what not. These twits and post and things can also be called ‘evidence’, I know it is a new concept but this ‘evidence’ to prove who the troublemakers are and convict them of ‘crimes’ that are committed. I know silly me, I am just another known coward.
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Techdirt is appearing to be more and more unreasonable as times goes by.
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However, it may be reasonable to conclude that your right does not extend to any type of speech you could possibly conceive of.
This is, in fact, the nature of the rights guaranteed by the First Amendment, as interpreted by generations and generations of legislators, courts, and scholars, many of whom were and are, shocking as it may be, reasonable people.
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Free speech isn't an absolute. Even in the US, the courts have found that some speech is protected, and some speech is not. As an example, consider the concept of obscenity. Obscene material is not protected free speech.
Your rights, your freedoms, they stop where they start to limit the freedoms of others. When your freedom hurts the liberty of someone else, or hurts them in a manner that takes away from that liberty, your rights have stopped.
Reasonable people in the last 400 years or so have debated it, they have ruled on it, they have taught it, and they have nurtured it. Without reasonable men and women, freedom would be anarchy, which is the ultimate form of freedom. That isn't what the constitution had at it's core.
It's just disappointing that Mike is do frigging paranoid, that he can no longer trust his fellow man.
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I get the impression that the other AC's comment was simply an acknowledgement that this right is limited by others' rights.
For example, you can't say (speech!) to someone, "I'll pay you $50 to kill my wife."
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Incitement to violence that poses an imminent threat is illegal, under First Amendment jurisprudence. The Supremes have decided that you can't do that with your speech. This was and remains a mushy area of the law, for obvious reasons. Note especially the 4-year sentences against those guys in the UK who posted incitements to riots in the UK where the riots didn't even happen...it ain't the US, but it's an interesting twist.
But the State can't say: "You, who offered a contract to kill your wife, can no longer speak, write, Tweet, post on FB, etc."...although these rights may be severely curtailed while in prison.
Have I answered your question? Because I've certainly confused myself.
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damn twitter...
If you do, you will have committed a crime because it is illegal to hire someone to murder someone else. This does not mean that people should be prevented from speaking because they might hire someone to kill their wife. Some people might just want to tell their wife they love her, but they couldn't, and that violent dude could just kill her himself. Don't you see how censoring speech is stupid even when you try to turn the argument into "if you are against censorship you are for crime"? because you wtotally FAILED
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Re: damn twitter...
If you'd care to join that conversation, replying is easier to follow along with the posting a new comment on a different topic.
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Like every other progressive out there in the world who wants to tell you what to do. I got no use for any of them.
Its not a coincidence that the First and Second Amendments are speech and guns, because when the second is taken away, the first is soon to follow, then the Forth and Fifth.
When it says the Right Of The People, it means YOU and I.
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