Okay that was a lie. Obviously I care about free speech like anyone else. But the discourse around free speech has been co-opted to justify peoples shitty/bigoted opinions. The white supremacist group patriot front has the slogan "will your speech be considered hate speech?" which is the best example of this phenomenon. Obviously a white supremacist group doesn't care about free speech and they are simply using it as a tactic to appeal to racists who feel like their opinion makes them oppressed so they can forward their goal of a white ethnostate.
There are nuances to free speech in the same way that every other right and value has nuances. Freedom of movement doesn't mean you get to break into someone's house. Property rights doesn't mean you get to own the air we breathe. Saying that freedom is your number one priority in society doesn't mean you have the "freedom" to murder. Believing in small government doesn't mean there shouldn't be penalties for murder. The right to life doesn't mean you get to force someone to donate their organs to you.
Everyone knows this and I'm not trying to insult anyone's intelligence. But it is getting really difficult to take these free-speech warriors in good faith when the right to speech is the only right to be given the same level of nuance as other rights. Freedom of speech doesn't mean you get to lie in court, or make death threats. Free speech "absolutism" doesn't exist in the same way that absolutism for other rights don't exist. In the case of lying in court or death threats, we frown upon those things and we understand that they are not things that should be protected under free speech because of material consequences. But all speech has material consequences.
This is most relevant to the topic of "cancel culture" a phrase I absolutely despise because it is meaningless. People have been critical and hostile of things they don't like since the beginning of time. It is not a new phenomenon. People have tried to "cancel" gay marriage, de-segregation, women's suffrage and every other controversial idea in history, and all of those things have had much greater material affects then getting cancelled on twitter.
People accuse cancel culture of being an enemy of free speech when its the exact opposite. Criticizing speech is in itself free speech. Acting as if your views can never be criticized (even significantly) is the enemy of free speech. Not to mention that getting criticized by others is not a violation of free speech. Free speech is a government principle. Not to do with private companies or individuals.
People use the same rhetoric for hate speech. I oppose the protection of hate speech under free speech for moral and practical reasons. Of course you are free to disagree with me but if you do, you should have a better reason than just "free speech bro!". Like I said before, every right and value has nuance to it. If one of the states of the US tried to bring back segregation no one is gonna defend it by saying "But States Rights!". Again, because we understand that no right is absolute.
The people who complain about cancel culture are the same people who cancelled bud light for having a trans person on there. What happened to free speech absolutism? Freedom of speech should be unconditional but under certain conditions? People will boycott movies, companies, and celebrities for being "woke" all the time but no one considers that to be cancel culture nor an enemy of free speech. While I think anti-woke cancellings are weird I don't think that constitutes as a violation of free speech.
People also don't seem to understand how hate speech never ends at just hate speech. Apologies for invoking Godwins law but do you think that people in Nazi Germany just randomly woke up one day and decided "you know what I'm gonna start being antisemitic" just completely on their own with no external forces? of course not. They were convinced that genocide was either necessary, or at least permissable. Or they grew up antisemitic and the nazi party confirmed and supported their bigotry. And how did people get convinced? Through hate speech. And in the modern day, do you think neo-nazis are gonna say their speech and just call it a day? Obviously not. They have a very specific and tangible goal, and they are forwarding those goals with words. Words that will get people on their side and convince them to do more material harm than just the words themselves.
The world is more complex than black and white and binaries. Start acting like it. Conversations around free speech have been extremely toxic and it's time we bring back good faith debate without the double standards.
