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Good : It makes the conversation intelligent and sane.
Bad : People sometimes say bad things.
Free speech in no way makes a conversation intelligent or sane.
Free speech is necessary to prevent the government from censoring dissent.
The consequence is that there’s little to no legal repercussions to spreading lies and hate. But that doesn’t mean there can’t be repercussions.
Imagine a censor who thinks that all of his weird dogmatic opinions are pure golden truth picking over your conversations and rewriting or removing everything he doesn’t like. A rather stupid, sloppy censor who couldn’t get the point if it was underlined twice.
Imagine what your posts would convey then.
Someone who disagrees with you and calls out your hate is not a censor.
True. But if they censor you then they’re a censor.
Bad: most people who use the term “free speech” don’t understand what it means and what it doesn’t mean. Have a look at this handy xkcd.
Agreed. I am in the process of creating a lemmy instance (mostly for testing), with the core tenets being free speech and freedom of information. I just need to find a way of rewording it so that people don’t think it means endorsement of assholery.
I think invite-only and “Don’t make me ban you!” as the only rule could work.
“Don’t make me ban you!” Isn’t a rule.
A rule would be “don’t say anything I dislike”
Your comments in this thread sound a lot like you not wanting us to say anything you dislike. I respect your opinions and I would fight for you being allowed to share them. I just think they’re wrong and disingenuous.
I’m just rephrasing it to frame it as a command. That’s basically what a rule is. A command. A rule has imperativeness.
And at the same time, you rephrase it to imply something that was nowhere in the original sentence.
“Don’t make me ban you” doesn’t necessarily mean “Don’t say anything I don’t like” but maybe just “Don’t post anything illegal” or “Don’t make the experience worse for everyone else”. I fully agree that the original phrasing is too vague which is why I’ve provided a whole list of more specific suggestions.
Well it’s strongly implied.
If you intend to wax pedantic then at least give us your definition. This secondhand linked pedantry crosses the line.
Free speech means that you can not be punished by law for your opinions. It explicitly does not mean that others are required to listen to you or even like your opinions. Just as you are allowed to hold a controversial opinion, they are allowed to disagree with you, argue with you, walk away or show you the door if you’re in their house/community/instance.
That’s one legal implementation of the idea.
The actual idea goes something like : speech that flows freely without inhibition.
There is no inherent arbiter of good or truth.
If the trust in expertise is tarnished, reshaping reality is left to the uninformed.
You can trust the uninformed to express their own will truthfully at least. (Unless they’re convinced to side with an authority). There’s a reliable truth there. I guess that’s the rock of democracy.
