Comment by lovich
5 hours ago
You’re already making concessions to non absolute free speech in your comment about free speech being absolute.
I have yet to meet a free speech absolutist who was actually absolutist. At best they still struggle with violent speech and at worst they buy out a large social media platform and start censoring shit they don’t like.
True, but you have to draw a line somewhere. The U.S. is one of the staunchest defenders of free speech but even there the line in the sand is calls for violence.
> As soon as you start making allowances and exceptions the entire subject is moot.
> you have to draw a line somewhere.
So the entire subject is now moot, I gather.
Touché.
In US law, there are a lot more lines in the sand than violence. Take for example price coordination between competitors, or fraudulent financially material statements posted to twitter, libel & slander, defamation, etc.
If we're going with "free speech absolutism" outside the law, one notable "free speech absolutist" has drawn the line at sharing publicly-available info on a billionaire's private jet's comings and goings.
perhaps you have an incorrect understanding of what freedom of speech is? it is not "everything you do is a form of speech, and freedom of speech must be absolute, therefore everything is allowed".
a free speech absolutist would say that expression may not be prohibited or punished because of the idea, opinion, belief, argument, or message it communicates, but that using speech as a mechanism to commit an independently harmful act does not shield one from consequences.