Can Robust Free Speech Co-Exist with the Fight for Justice?

It’s a complicated and confusing time for the idea of free speech. On the one hand, tens of thousands of people have taken to the streets in recent weeks, exercising their rights to free speech in defense of justice, equality, and a more inclusive America. In some cases, however, they’ve been met with military-style police crackdowns. Meanwhile, hate speech and disinformation proliferate online about everything from covid-19 to the 2020 election. And while some might argue that there’s never been a wider variety of opinions in the ether, others argue that a culture of silencing or cancelling unpopular or offensive speech is threatening to narrow the boundaries of American discourse. Is there a middle ground in these divided times? Can we protect free thinking while promoting a more inclusive culture and protecting against the harms of speech? PEN America CEO Suzanne Nossel thinks we can. She joins Vivian Schiller, head of Aspen Digital, to talk about her new book Dare to Speak.

[RstesotTv]

First Amendment.... The Founding Father's understood there is no justice without free speech.

[RalphDratman]

I think the problem of "cancel culture" is related to the idea that "the perfect should not be the enemy of the good." No one's life or mind is unstained. We have to use the framework of law to decide which transgressions are actionable and which are not. Cancel culture is identical to the old concept of scandal. Government by scandal is not going to be successful.

A FOIA process directed at Facebook sounds good to me, but it would necessitate big changes in the law, I think.

[wes]

Tl;dw The underlying message here is we want to set policy where our minority extreme ideology is protected speech and we don’t want the censorship tools we’re creating to ever be used against us in the future.

[RalphDratman]

I agree that we need free speech, but I am not sure free speech as implemented by the First Amendment of 1787 is going to be an adequate construct to deal with electronic communication of the type we call "social media". It may never be necessary to rewrite the Constitution, but it will be necessary to go beyond the concept that any speech is always allowed. This might happen in criminal laws which will have to pass Constitutional muster, or maybe in some other structure such as civil liability. But eventually there will have to be some uniform regulation of false or violence-inciting speech. 

While it is true that social media companies are gradually instituting relevant policies, we cannot afford to make all such rules voluntary, . Some kind of uniform code, written perhaps into regulations rather than laws, has to make these policies sufficiently uniform that a company which does not comply cannot end up grabbing power thereby.

[rongrimm]

You state racism is a huge problem, citations please. It could be argued America is at it’s least racist state and the least of any other country in the world. Ever wonder why POC want to move to this racist place.