Competing Conceptions of Free Speech

2020 ◽  
pp. 61-74
Author(s):  
Rodney A. Smolla
Keyword(s):  
Free Speech ◽  
Freedom Of Speech ◽  
Democratic Process ◽  
Marketplace Of Ideas ◽  
Social Compact ◽  
The Social

This chapter focuses on the American debate over the meaning of “freedom of speech,” which has been a contest between two ideas: the “order and morality” theory and the “marketplace of ideas” theory. It discusses the “order and morality” theory as a conception of freedom of speech that is grounded in the notion that freedom of speech cannot be elevated above the “social compact” that binds society. It also emphasizes that speech that undermines order or morality may be punished by laws enacted through the democratic process. The chapter explains that the marketplace theory is the opposite of order and morality, arguing that it is grounded in the notion that democracy is subordinate to free speech. It clarifies that the test of truth and morality should be the power of a thought to win in the competition of the marketplace of ideas.

scholarly journals Economic Perspectives on Free Speech

2021 ◽  
pp. 117-136
Author(s):  
Daniel Hemel
Keyword(s):  
Free Speech ◽  
Law And Economics ◽  
Information Economics ◽  
Freedom Of Speech ◽  
Fake News ◽  
Marketplace Of Ideas ◽  
Goods And Services ◽  
Similarities And Differences ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Economic Perspectives

This chapter explores the potential for economic analysis to illuminate freedom of speech. For early scholars of law and economics, the similarities and differences between the metaphorical marketplace for ideas and literal markets for goods and services were subjects of much attention. The chapter then argues that information economics has the potential to explain failures in the ‘marketplace of ideas’. Just as information asymmetry in the market for goods and services allows low quality goods and services to drive high quality goods and services out of the marketplace, there is reason to think that ‘bad speech’ will tend to drive out the ‘good’. For good information to compete in the market, readers and listeners must be able to tell the difference between good and bad information—an idea with particular resonance in the age of ‘fake news’, and with potential implications for the design of free-speech laws.

Autonomy and Free Speech

2021 ◽  
pp. 60-81
Author(s):  
Catriona Mackenzie ◽  
Denise Meyerson
Keyword(s):  
Free Speech ◽  
Freedom Of Speech ◽  
The State ◽  
Social Conditions ◽  
The Public ◽  
Negative Liberty ◽  
The Social ◽  
Positive Duties ◽  
Negative Duty ◽  
The Relationship

This chapter evaluates the relationship between autonomy and freedom of speech, examining a variety of autonomy-based justifications for the importance of speech and especially of freedom of speech. The differences between these justifications relate not only to the different conceptions of autonomy that underpin them, but also to their different responses to the problem of competing autonomy interests. It is plausible to think that the state should respect, protect, and promote the autonomy of everyone—speakers, listeners, thinkers, bystanders, and members of the public at large. Enhancing the autonomy of some might, however, require restricting the speech of others. The liberty-based conceptions of autonomy prioritize the interests of speakers and listeners and hold that the primary obligation of the state is the negative duty not to interfere with the autonomy of individual speakers and listeners. By contrast, the relational conceptions of autonomy hold that the negative liberty interests of individual speakers and hearers should be balanced against the positive duties of the state to promote the social conditions necessary for the development and exercise of autonomy by all citizens.

FREE SPEECH ON SOCIAL MEDIA: HOW TO PROTECT OUR FREEDOMS FROM SOCIAL MEDIA THAT ARE FUNDED BY TRADE IN OUR PERSONAL DATA

2020 ◽  
Vol 37 (2) ◽  
pp. 209-236
Author(s):  
Richard Sorabji
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Political Parties ◽  
Free Speech ◽  
Past History ◽  
Personal Data ◽  
Freedom Of Speech ◽  
Online Social Media ◽  
Government Documents ◽  
Important Benefit ◽  
The Social

AbstractI have argued elsewhere that in past history, freedom of speech, whether granted to few or many, was granted as bestowing some important benefit. John Stuart Mill, for example, in On Liberty, saw it as enabling us to learn from each other through discussion. By the test of benefit, I here argue that social media that are funded through trade in our personal data with advertisers, including propagandists, cannot claim to be supporting free speech. We lose our freedoms, if the personal data we entrust to online social media are used to target us with information, or disinformation, tailored as persuasive to different personalities, in order to maximize revenue from advertisers or propagandists. Among the serious consequences described, particularly dangerous because of its effect on democracy, is the use of such targeted advertisements to swing voting campaigns. Control is needed both of the social media and of any political parties that pay social media for differential targeting of voters based on personality. Using UK government documents, I recommend legislation for reform and enforcement.

scholarly journals PewDiePie, racism and Youtube’s neoliberalist interpretation of freedom of speech

2020 ◽  
pp. 135485652093860 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jenni Hokka
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Digital Media ◽  
Equal Opportunity ◽  
Freedom Of Speech ◽  
Marketplace Of Ideas ◽  
Internet Culture ◽  
The Social ◽  
Neoliberal Ideology ◽  
History Of ◽  
Racist Discourse

How and why the social limits of racist speech have become obscure and ‘outdated’ for a YouTube star PewDiePie and his over 100 million fans? How have the policies of YouTube affected the general understanding of the limits of racist discourse in the digital media context? In this article, I argue that the case of PewDiePie shows how YouTube exercises a neoliberalist understanding of freedom of speech. In my analysis, I contextualise PewDiePie’s own comments and YouTube’s publications into the history of Internet culture and introduce the development of YouTube into a neoliberalist sphere. I illustrate how neoliberal ideology is now implemented on three levels on YouTube: through creating an illusion of intimacy between a creator and his/her fans, through the promise of equal opportunity on YouTube and through a neoliberalist interpretation of the marketplace-of-ideas principle. The analysis reveals how YouTube’s policies and practices as ideological choices contribute to the normalisation of racism on social media.

The Logic of ‘But’: Quarrels, Literature and Democracy

Paragraph ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 40 (1) ◽  
pp. 114-130
Author(s):  
Thomas Docherty
Keyword(s):  
Free Speech ◽  
Freedom Of Speech ◽  
The Way

This paper looks at intrinsic disputation within proposition, and specifically within propositions that offer a moderated version of the freedom of speech and expression. It begins from a consideration of what is at stake in Othello's ‘Rude am I in my speech’, a rhetorical gesture that frames an act of great eloquence, and in which the eloquence serves to formulate a quarrel by ostensibly resolving it. This example reveals that there is a conflict between empirical quarrel and articulated spoken resolution. This leads the essay to explore the way in which diplomacy works, whereby we establish the pretence that there is peace between disputatious positions through the power of the logic of ‘but’, thus: ‘I agree with you, but …’. Finally, this is extended to a consideration of the limits of and/or on free speech: ‘I defend free speech, but …’, where the ‘but’ is a gesture in which the defence of free speech is modified to the point of being obliterated.

The critical theory of democracy in Western political thought

2020 ◽  
pp. 117
Author(s):  
Ruqaya Saeed Khalkhal
Keyword(s):  
Political Life ◽  
The Political ◽  
Democratic Process ◽  
The Social ◽  
Science And Politics ◽  
Political Realities ◽  
The Church ◽  
Theory Of Democracy ◽  
Or Applications ◽  
The Ideal

The darkness that Europe lived in the shadow of the Church obscured the light that was radiating in other parts, and even put forward the idea of democracy by birth, especially that it emerged from the tent of Greek civilization did not mature in later centuries, especially after the clergy and ideological orientation for Protestants and Catholics at the crossroads Political life, but when the Renaissance emerged and the intellectual movement began to interact both at the level of science and politics, the Europeans in democracy found refuge to get rid of the tyranny of the church, and the fruits of the application of democracy began to appear on the surface of most Western societies, which were at the forefront to be doubtful forms of governece.        Democracy, both in theory and in practice, did not always reflect Western political realities, and even since the Greek proposition, it has not lived up to the idealism that was expected to ensure continuity. Even if there is a perception of the success of the democratic process in Western societies, but it was repulsed unable to apply in Islamic societies, because of the social contradiction added to the nature of the ruling regimes, and it is neither scientific nor realistic to convey perceptions or applications that do not conflict only with our civilized reality The political realization created by certain historical circumstances, and then disguises the different reality that produced them for the purpose of resonance in the ideal application.

PERSECUTION AND THE ART OF FREEDOM: ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE ON THE IMPORTANCE OF FREE PRESS AND FREE SPEECH IN DEMOCRATIC SOCIETY

2020 ◽  
Vol 37 (2) ◽  
pp. 190-208
Author(s):  
Khalil M. Habib
Keyword(s):  
Free Speech ◽  
Freedom Of Speech ◽  
Freedom Of The Press ◽  
Alexis De Tocqueville ◽  
Free Society ◽  
Free Press ◽  
Constituent Element ◽  
The Press ◽  
The Right ◽  
Shed Light

AbstractAccording to Tocqueville, the freedom of the press, which he treats as an extension of the freedom of speech, is a primary constituent element of liberty. Tocqueville treats the freedom of the press in relation to and as an extension of the right to assemble and govern one’s own affairs, both of which he argues are essential to preserving liberty in a free society. Although scholars acknowledge the importance of civil associations to liberty in Tocqueville’s political thought, they routinely ignore the importance he places on the freedom of the press and speech. His reflections on the importance of the free press and speech may help to shed light on the dangers of recent attempts to censor the press and speech.

Positive Free Speech: A Democratic Freedom

2021 ◽  
pp. 230-248
Author(s):  
Andrew T. Kenyon
Keyword(s):  
Free Speech ◽  
Freedom Of Speech ◽  
Media Freedom ◽  
Public Speech ◽  
Positive Freedom ◽  
Negative Liberty ◽  
Structural Dimensions ◽  
Democratic Freedom ◽  
Legal Right

This chapter explores the positive structural dimensions of the freedom of speech by using a democratic free speech rationale. While far from the only aspect of positive free speech, it offers a useful example of the freedom’s positive dimensions. The chapter focuses on legal conditions underlying public speech and their links to democratic constitutional arrangements. It outlines the general approach before drawing brief comparisons with two well-known US approaches to free speech and media freedom. The chapter then highlights two of the multiple ways in which ‘positive’ can be used in relation to free speech. Positive may concern positive freedom, the idea that freedom is not only a negative liberty but requires support or enablement. It can also be used in terms of a positive right, typically a legal right enforced through courts.

scholarly journals Scholarship Suppression: Theoretical Perspectives and Emerging Trends

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sean Stevens ◽  
Lee Jussim ◽  
Nathan Honeycutt
Keyword(s):  
Free Speech ◽  
Real World ◽  
Social Issues ◽  
Freedom Of Speech ◽  
Sociological Analysis ◽  
The Past ◽  
Academic Scholarship ◽  
Theoretical Perspectives ◽  
Emerging Trends ◽  
Free Speech Rights

This paper explores the suppression of ideas within academic scholarship by academics, either by self-suppression or because of the efforts of other academics. Legal, moral, and social issues distinguishing freedom of speech, freedom of inquiry, and academic freedom are reviewed. How these freedoms and protections can come into tension is then explored by a sociological analysis of denunciation mobs who exercise their legal free speech rights to call for punishing scholars who express ideas they disapprove of and condemn. When successful, these efforts, which constitute legally protected speech, will suppress certain ideas. Real-world examples over the past five years of academics who have been sanctioned or terminated for scholarship targeted by a denunciation mob are then explored.

scholarly journals Rebuilding the social compact: urban service delivery and property taxes in Pakistan

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Asim Ijaz Khwaja ◽  
◽  
Osman Haq ◽  
Adnan Qadir Khan ◽  
Benjamin Olken ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Service Delivery ◽  
Property Taxes ◽  
Social Compact ◽  
Urban Service ◽  
The Social
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