It is written by the sage Brandeis that “the remedy [to harmful speech] is more speech, not enforced silence.”
In order for this remedy to be applied, someone has to actually compose the “more speech” that rebuts the harmful speech. This paper appears to be a set of recommendations for how to go about doing that; crafting “more speech” so that it actually constitutes an effective and relevant rebuttal against speech that advocates violence. I didn’t notice anything in this paper that recommended suppression or censorship, or even that those were up for consideration.
(Also, it’s really okay to not like genocide; for “let’s massacre the tribe next door!” to be among the “views you don’t like”. As it is written by the rhetor Goldwater: “moderation in the protection of liberty is no virtue.”)
I’d upvote this five times if I could—but I suspect the reason we’re all hung up on the title is that nobody but you actually has read the paper before commenting. Which is a perfect little example of how people often get sucked into a debate about terminology and end up neglecting the actual subject.
That’s true, but every term you could use to describe misleading, counterfactual or just basically horrible statements can also be used as a rhetorical weapon without regard to whether it’s actually applicable in a given case. Lies, propaganda, fake news, twisted facts, hate speech, political correctness—you can use any of them to shut the door on argument. “Bias” is used like that often—“you’re just biased!”—but we still have to deal with bias as a real thing.
That said I’m not sure “Dangerous speech” is a useful new term itself. It’s very vague, and it has an Orwellian ring to it, and it seems like it would derail many discussions of the actual content of the speech into arguments about definitions of “dangerous”. If anyone wants to defend the utility of it, go ahead and I’ll hear it, but I’m usually only in favour of introducing new terms when they actually fill a gap. We already have terms like “lies” and “hate speech” and “incitement to violence” and what have you, so I’m not sure what “dangerous speech” would add.
“Inciting violence” is a lot better than “hate speech” because it’s a lot less flexible and less open to reinterpretation.
I actually think that “fake news” is less bad than “dangerous news”, because you can classify almost anything you disagree with as “dangerous” and kind of be correct, but there are some things that one cannot classify as “fake” without opening oneself up to a severe counter-attack.
I think the most dangerous aspect of ‘dangerous speech’ is it is a shared meme to disregard certain types of arguments off-hand, regardless of how true or false they are. It becomes most dangerous when someone then, for some reason, decides to investigate further and realizes “Hey, some of this stuff is true! And I can’t trust anyone anymore.”
“Dangerous speech” could easily become a weapon to attack and surpress views you don’t like.
This has already happened with “Hate speech” and “Fake news”.
It is written by the sage Brandeis that “the remedy [to harmful speech] is more speech, not enforced silence.”
In order for this remedy to be applied, someone has to actually compose the “more speech” that rebuts the harmful speech. This paper appears to be a set of recommendations for how to go about doing that; crafting “more speech” so that it actually constitutes an effective and relevant rebuttal against speech that advocates violence. I didn’t notice anything in this paper that recommended suppression or censorship, or even that those were up for consideration.
(Also, it’s really okay to not like genocide; for “let’s massacre the tribe next door!” to be among the “views you don’t like”. As it is written by the rhetor Goldwater: “moderation in the protection of liberty is no virtue.”)
I’d upvote this five times if I could—but I suspect the reason we’re all hung up on the title is that nobody but you actually has read the paper before commenting. Which is a perfect little example of how people often get sucked into a debate about terminology and end up neglecting the actual subject.
That’s true, but every term you could use to describe misleading, counterfactual or just basically horrible statements can also be used as a rhetorical weapon without regard to whether it’s actually applicable in a given case. Lies, propaganda, fake news, twisted facts, hate speech, political correctness—you can use any of them to shut the door on argument. “Bias” is used like that often—“you’re just biased!”—but we still have to deal with bias as a real thing.
That said I’m not sure “Dangerous speech” is a useful new term itself. It’s very vague, and it has an Orwellian ring to it, and it seems like it would derail many discussions of the actual content of the speech into arguments about definitions of “dangerous”. If anyone wants to defend the utility of it, go ahead and I’ll hear it, but I’m usually only in favour of introducing new terms when they actually fill a gap. We already have terms like “lies” and “hate speech” and “incitement to violence” and what have you, so I’m not sure what “dangerous speech” would add.
“Inciting violence” is a lot better than “hate speech” because it’s a lot less flexible and less open to reinterpretation.
I actually think that “fake news” is less bad than “dangerous news”, because you can classify almost anything you disagree with as “dangerous” and kind of be correct, but there are some things that one cannot classify as “fake” without opening oneself up to a severe counter-attack.
I think the most dangerous aspect of ‘dangerous speech’ is it is a shared meme to disregard certain types of arguments off-hand, regardless of how true or false they are. It becomes most dangerous when someone then, for some reason, decides to investigate further and realizes “Hey, some of this stuff is true! And I can’t trust anyone anymore.”