TobiSGD:

Being held accountable socially for saying something that's socially unaccepted is different from being told by an authority that you are not allowed to say it.

As for slander, it's really not applicable here because first, I didn't say anything slanderous about anyone; and second this is about political opinions being suppressed.

It's very easy to think and preach that everyone should have the right to say whatever they want, and some people may be able to get through life without ever having their ideals tested in real situations. In this case LinuxQuestions has been tested, and chose to suppress speech in order to protect certain groups from being offended.

And that is fine: it's Jeremy's forum and his authority should be respected. Similarly, if you came into my home and started preaching about gay rights, I'd throw you out with your head first. It's not a strange decision at all. And it may actually be true that there are minorities here that would be offended if this place turned into a new StormFront, and then they would obviously not come here any more. So it may even be the reasonable thing to do. Some discussion boards / mailing lists / whatever go even further and ban political and religious discussions altogether because they always cause fights.

But don't say that LQ is sticking up for freedom of speech. Very few people do. I wouldn't. :-)

For the record, no one outside of Germany thinks Germany has free speech. Its censorship / political persecution laws are similar to Cuba's, only different views are being persecuted. Germany has even banned revisionism of certain historical events, effectively outlawing historical studies when the government doesn't like their findings. The USA has the strongest protection of speech in the world, if you want an example of how real free speech looks like.

Hey, what do you think about the latest bloated piece of crap that firefox calls a browser? Everyone knows that Midori and Chromium is much better. And how about Arch's systemd mess. And how about that darned Ubuntu crap unity desktop.

2 members found this post helpful.

I'm all for free speech but this is going too far! If opinions like this are allowed on this forum I shall be leaving forthwith!

First, a government that bans Jewish people from becoming doctors or lawyers is not a "meritocracy."

Second, your calls for "free speech" started only after restrictions were placed on your own freedom. Prior to that, you'd spent the entire marijuana and LGBT adoption threads arguing that every activity that didn't personally agree with should be banned, and that we should take lessons from the Third Reich in how to implement a fascist government to make that happen. (When reading through it, I kept thinking "He sounds like Darth Vader in Attack of the Clones"). It looks to me as if you only want freedoms that are convenient to yourself.

Fascism and authoritarianism are not compatible with the concept of freedom, and that includes freedom of speech. You can't argue for both, and you're going to have to drop one.

dugan,

As much as I would love to discuss Nazi Germany's meritocracy and racial policy with you, I don't think it's appreciated in "LQ Feedback". So please let's stick to the topic at hand, if you don't mind.

A person who says he values freedom of speech shouldn't be hypocritical about it, and is therefore expected to allow it. You're the ones who think Eleanor Roosevelt has the right to decide what's right and wrong, so you're the ones that should follow article 19 in the UDHR:

I never said I approved of it. In fact I believe I denounced it as "completely arbitrary victor's justice" in the post that was deleted. I would ban all opinions that I think are harmful to society, but you think that is wrong... so the question is: why do you do it, or call for it to be done?

In my opinion freedom of speech has the same limits any other freedom has (and this is for good). I may have the right to walk in public places, but this doesn't mean that I have the right to kick someone who's standing in the middle of the curbside just because s/he is blocking my way. In the same way, I may not like people with blue hair, for whatever reason, but this doesn't entitle me insult every blue hair person I see in the street, just because of freedom of speech. There are limits.

What if, for example, someone here in the forum decided to make threads explaining how to create home-made bombs? Would the proponents of absolute freedom of speech consider it's fine to leave these threads because otherwise the mods could be censoring or violating someone else's freedom of speech? That would be ridiculous... I'm not implying that something like this happened in the thread discussed here, I'm just giving an example with an extreme case to illustrate why I think freedom of speech must have some reasonable limitations and must be used responsibly; I don't think anyone can publicly say whatever they want, no matter the consequences, in the name of freedom of speech.

There is no "but".

You've just said everything anyone needs to know about how sincere your "freedom of speech" argument is. You don't personally believe in free speech at all.

Keep in mind I said that I'm a huge proponent of free speech (which is very much true), not that we'd allow it to the detriment of other members here at LQ.

--jeremy

I agree.

I disagree.

Every time a government or government controlled organization is given the power to suppress "hate speech", the definition of "hate speech" rapidly shifts to include any opinions that government doesn't want expressed.

It would be nicer if you didn't insult every (some characteristic) person you meet. But that is not worth the harm done by giving the government the power to tell you not to.

US courts generally take that attitude. The international nature of the Internet means the cat is out of the bag anyway on such things. Suppressing information is even harder than suppressing the expression of opinions.

No one in this forum has (nor should have) a right to freedom of speech other than Jeremy. So I hope and expect the mods would censor such threads, and I don't think that violates anyone's rights. But if the government demanded that the mods here censor those threads, that does violate free speech rights.

The boundary between "free speech" and "yelling 'fire' in a crowded theater" is sometimes hard to precisely identify. But that is different than the boundary between "free speech" and "opinions so hurtful that we cannot tolerate them". There is no such boundary. "Opinions so hurtful that we cannot tolerate them" are part of free speech and if you want government to suppress those opinions, you don't believe in free speech.

Consider the example of Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, who produced "Innocence of Muslims", which the Obama administration lied about and claimed provoked the murders of US embassy personnel in Libya.

1) Nakoula produced an offensive movie, with an anti-Muslim message that reasonable people would not want disseminated. But in the US, he has that free speech right.
2) Nakoula contacted major US media and told them he was Jewish and his movie was a big budget production paid for by wealthy Jews. All of that was lies, rather offensive lies and lies intended to provoke a Muslim backlash against Jews, but freedom of speech allows you to lie.
3) Those major US media had sufficient evidence to conclude from the beginning that Nakoula's claims of a Jewish connection were lies. But they also wanted to provoke a backlash against Jews, so they reported those claims as if they were facts. Freedom of speech and the press also allows them to lie.
4) The attack in Libya was unrelated and committed by people who had apparently never heard of that movie. The US state department created a first draft public statement containing correct information about the terrorists who conducted that attack. Then someone in the White House reviewed and modified that statement to remove the truth and replace it with lies about Nakoula's movie. The White House is allowed to lie to the US public and does so constantly, and those who were stupid enough to reelect Obama have themselves to blame.
5) Nakoula was jailed for his (actually non existent) role in provoking the attacks in Libya. Since none of even what White House lies said he did was a crime, the prosecutor and judge had to dummy up other charges, but they made no secret he was being jailed for provoking the attacks in Libya. Even if he had provoked those attacks, jailing him for it is a horrible abuse of freedom of speech. Item 5 is the first CRIME in these events. Items 1 through 4 contain no crimes. This is a horrible crime committed by our government.
6) The White House and State department went on to commit real crimes in their continuing attempts to cover up the non criminal lie (4). But that is outside a discussion of free speech.

Items 1, 2 and 3 are all offensive examples of what must be considered "hate speech" if you have any definition of "hate speech". In many ways 3 was the worst of those because of the power wielded by the organizations making that hate speech. But the crime is still 5. We cannot allow the government the power to define and punish hate speech.

I don't think the governments should control everything, but I do believe there should be laws to avoid certain types of "hate speech". My general point is that freedom of speech must be used responsibly. To clarify this with an example, last April there were presidential elections in my country and the candidate who lost the elections used the media to say his followers "go out to the streets and unleash your rage"; as a result, 11 people were killed by his supporters and around 80 were injured (and things could have been worse). These are the kind of facts I think about when I say that freedom of speech must have certain limits; freedom of speech can't be confused with the "liberty" to say whatever no matter if the consequences of what you say may be destructive. Think about the events in Rwanda in 1994, portrayed in the film Hotel Rwanda, where a radio commentator used his radio program to stoke the ethnic differences between two ethnic groups and as a result hundreds of people were killed.

I'm not saying that something like the above is what happened in the thread discussed here, but understanding freedom of speech in abstract, as something without boundaries, without any kind of restriction and without any relation with ethics and responsibility has some risks. Like they say: "my rights end where your rights begin."

This sums it up so much nicely.

Besides, LQ membership is not mandatory for anyone, it's more like a private club. If you want to participate here, you are welcome, but there are some rules to obey. The concept of Human rights is simply NOT applicable here. It's not like you were born here, like you were born in Sudan or anywhere where HR question is important.

Don't you think that's the responsibility of the killers? If I told you to kill someone, then I certainly hope you wouldn't just take my word for it and do it. :-)

Sorry about Chávez, by the way.

You took 1 sentence out of a paragraph to someone else and twisted it. This the reason for the first sentence, the more you define it clearly the more it must be applied to everyone. By your way of thinking your reply should be removed because you took it out of context twisted it and used it for your own purpose. You put your thoughts and beliefs at a higher value than mine in that one simple action. That is not free speach and describes the situation I said in my previous post.

I understand and respect Jeremy's thoughts with this. I don;t have to agree with them personally, even though I do, but as a member of LQ I do have to follow them. I have great difficulty with much of the added bits. The rules are written, the OP asked a simple question for clarification, many people jumped in dragging up the past and that did nothing to help the OP get an answer. Reading further than my last post I see the past being dragged back up again.

It simple really, treat people how you want to be treated. Show respect to other for the people they are and the opnions they hold. Don't do to others unless you are happy for them to do it to you.

IMO, if you want more social free speech, join facebook.

Maybe we are deviating from the main topic here, but I think both sides are equally responsible.

Thanks, I'm sorry about his death too .