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[Nepenthe]

How do you think societies become more tolerant in their speech over time? Friendly debate? A magical Disney number?

 

[besada]

I feel like this ignores the human behaviour side of it though. Dog piling actively discourages a person from contributing any further in the conversation as well as discourages others from joining in on the same side, because who wants to jump in to defend the dude everyone is piling on (I'm not talking about this thread, or even NeoGAF in general, I mean more broadly). By treating anyone who presents unpopular speech as a pariah and shaming them, how are you not actively discouraging unpopular speech in the future?

Again, there's no promise that free speech is supposed to be easy or not make you upset. There's no real way to stop dogpiling without preferring your speech to theirs. If you want to avoid being dogpiled, there are lots of methods. I've discussed them in detail elsewhere. Half of not getting dogpiled is having a decent argument in the first place. Easy to refute arguments draw people to low hanging fruit. Regardless, I'm neither encouraging, nor discouraging speech because I don't stop people from disagreeing with you. It's not anyone's job to encourage someone else's speech.

I don't disagree with any of that. Let's change the scenario - what if Target has an effective monopoly on video game sales?

Then you could argue de facto censorship and a court might even agree with you. But I'm not particularly interested in discussing imaginary situations.

 

[soco]

Frankly >_> I've seen Philosophy lectures devolve into what the definition of a definition is.

Yes, but that's Philosophy. Likely, no one has that high level definition. In the US, we have a very specifically defined version of it that only provides protection from the government, but even that is not entirely so. You can't make a threat against anyone and call that free speech.

 

[Mr_Appleby]

omg, after all these years it's my first avatar quote! <3

 

[Game Guru]

Freedom of speech only means the government can't punish you for speaking your mind. If you use your freedom of speech to be an asshole to people, then expect people to use their freedom of speech to call you an asshole.

 

[Muppet of a Man]

Neither dogpiling nor shaming someone stops them from speaking. Those are responses to speech, and they are speech themselves. Some people seem to think "free speech" means that people have to give them a platform, and listen and agree to their ideas. That's not the case. No one's stopping you from speaking by refusing you a platform, or disagreeing with you in number, or saying you're a bad person for saying what you said.

You can speak, but that creates no obligation in anyone to listen, take you seriously, or allow you to speak without response.

This is a great catch-all response to all those so-called "free speech advocates". It should be stickied on the front page of OT.

 

[iamblades]

No shit people who agree with said speech are more likely to defend it.

It does not mean they are wrong though.

 

[theignoramus]

https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2017-05/uok-rsp050317.php

Link to the paper
http://psycnet.apa.org/psycinfo/2017-17075-001/

Quick, let's do the same study about strict "Constitutionalists".

 

[Razmos]

Anyone could have told you this

 

[Gattsu25]

No shit people who agree with said speech are more likely to defend it.

It does not mean they are wrong though.

Even when most "free speech defense" invocations occur while a person's right to free speech is not even being infringed upon?