For Americans, I recommend reading about the actual free speech standard in the US (Brandenburg v. Ohio). While "Fire in a crowded theater" appears, it's in a concurrence, and actually used to suggest that the standard created in the decision may even go too far.
The term comes from Schenk v. United States, and was used to argue that it wasn't unconstitutional to imprison a communist activist for printing and handing out flyers arguing that people shouldn't turn themselves in if they were to be drafted.
From a modern perspective what Schenk did appears incredibly tame, and I believe nearly anyone using the phrase today would find the central holding of the case absurd; I don't think any reasonable person nowadays believes asking people not to cooperate with the government in wartime should be illegal.
Brandenburg v. Ohio partially overturned Schenk, and while I agree reading about it is worthwhile unfortunately US law is sufficiently complicated that no one case exists that can be read to fully understand the current law around free speech in the US. I'd instead recommend the ACLU's position paper: https://www.aclu.org/other/freedom-expression-aclu-position-... . Note that while they make a very good case for what the law is, not every court in the country would agree with them.
I'm pretty sure that even in the midst of the Enlightenment, speech which directly encouraged violence, did harm or spread fraudulent ideas which led to death could be punished.
Yes and fortunately we're not relying on eg the European answer, given the miserable condition of free speech across Europe today. Arrested for common insults on Twitter in Britain, and buried under the boot of dictatorship in Belarus or Russia.
The US was the last great European product of the enlightenment, so it makes perfect sense that the US would be by far the greatest defender of free speech in human history. No other culture or nation has come even remotely close to defending it better. Hopefully in the coming decades the US becomes even more comparatively extreme in defending all forms of speech, including the most vile.
Of all stories you could have used as an opportunity to argue for that absolutist stance on free speech, you're picking the one where it has almost directly caused dozens of needless infant deaths and immense suffering, and that still doesn't seem to make you flinch. The rebuttal writes itself, really.
By that impossibly naive logic, I suppose you also support the unconditional right to bear arms in any circumstances, another absolutist stance that's worked out so well for the US and its 1907 victims in 370 mass shootings in 2019 so far.
Or Facebook's decision to let politicians lie to people's faces, naively thinking citizens are all intellectually equipped to fact-check for themselves and should bear that responsibility (we can see how this worked out with Trump and Brexit)
The widespread support for absurdly extreme stances like these in a nation shouldn't be a source of pride : they aren't the hallmark of an advanced civilisation, but rather that of an immature one that hasn't yet found the right balance. If this is America, then I'll take European wisdom over this any day.
If I yell "he's got a gun" as a prank intending people to stampeded out of a movie theater, trampeling and killing a someone in the panic, I'm responsible for the very predictable consequences. If I promote tea leaves as an effective innoculation to measels preventing people to get a life-saving vaccination, I'm responsible for the predictable consequences. There's a fine line somewhere and probably has something to do with opinion vs fact, but it's not crossed here.
It's an interesting question. The yelling causes pretty much identical harm regardless of whether the fire is there. Evacuating (in general) is a difficult problem because you want to do it without letting everyone know what's going on.
We mostly say yelling "fire!" is ok when the fire exists because it looks bad to punish the true alarm, not because the false alarm is worse than the true one.
Is free speech really what's holding back significant action to combat global warming? Isn't it possible that speech restrictions could have a negative effect on public support for such significant action?
I am not sure if this sort of language and comments are encouraged on HN. Are we advocating arrest of individuals we disagree with ? Is this the new silicon valley mob with hi-tech pitchforks ?
Slippery slopes. There are certain "theories" that irk me so that I'd be okay with them being arrested (almost). Flat earth believers are the top of the list.
They have different laws. They don't represent the views of everyone in those countries - sometimes not even a majority. Although public opinion on legal matters is generally confused at best.
Sadly the answer to this does not seem to depend on freedom or science.
We will see similar things happening in regards to climate, simply if absolute majority of people get convinced that it is an emergency.
With vaccines we have many times repeated experiment that not using the vaccine causes death, so majority of people support them. With climate change we do not have nearly the same level of confidence about the exact details of what is going to happen, and how exactly our actions are going to affect it, so only a minority supports it so far.
On the other hand, in the US freedom of speech would likely protect this person. And there are strong arguments in favor of absolutist versions of freedom of speech.
I find it interesting how people on HN are decidedly non-Utilitarian. I don't know, but for some reason I expected software engineers to be utilitarian. Not exactly sure why
Perhaps the Utilitarian view is actually that freedom of speech leads to the best outcome for the most people, even with all of its negative side effects.
Utilitarianism does not induce a stable steady state. It thinks of everyone as having a set of wants (of some cardinal magnitude), and says you should arrange the world so that the total magnitude of satisfied wants is maximized.
The immediate implication is that, in order to get something, the right approach is to want it more. This produces no benefit to anyone, but it lets you appropriate things that used to be assigned to other people.
I would prefer to relabel "wants" as "demands", admit they do indeed have different magnitudes, but also assign a quantity measuring the reasonableness of the demand. The mere fact that you want something isn't evidence that you should have it.
>And there are strong arguments in favor of absolutist versions of freedom of speech.
First, American freedom of speech isn't absolutist. There are laws against certain kinds of speech in the US, such as fraud, slander, libel, incitement to violence, conspiracy, etc. And many people seem to believe that Americans' right of association is in conflict with freedom of speech, as it allows the owners of private venues to determine what forms of speech can and cannot take place in those venues.
Second, this is not a strong argument in favor unless you happen to be an anti-vaxxer or simply lack empathy.
> fraud, slander, libel, incitement to violence, conspiracy, etc.
Let's go one by one:
* Fraud: not sure what you mean here. Fraudulent speech? Lying isn't a crime. Fraud is a crime that might involve speech, but there are more elements than simply stating an untruth.
* Slander/libel: Yes, this is an exception, but it is notably narrow and again has additional required elements.
* Incitement to violence: Nope. Incitement to _lawless_ action is simply one of the elements of the sole case in which someone can be prosecuted for _speech alone_ ("directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action.")
* Conspiracy: Again, unsure what you mean. Where is the "conspiracy" exception to free speech?
Can you provide citations for this? "Honest dealing" and "honest services" laws all require more than simply "untrue speech", in every case that I've seen.
The recent college admissions scandal mostly charged parents with wire fraud, if I recall correctly. The fraudulent part of their conduct consisted solely of untrue speech, representing to a school that an SAT score was earned by their child when it wasn't, or representing to the College Board that the person taking the test was their child when it wasn't.[1]
[1] There were other methods, but the two I list here seem in my eyes to consist exclusively of untrue speech. There were also fraud charges associated with representing payments as donations to a charity (for tax reasons) when they were meant as quid pro quo payment for services. If the tax fraud was the basis for every fraud charge, I'll admit that this example is invalid.
Wire fraud requires an intent to defraud ("obtaining money or property"). In your example, the defendants were all free to lie about someone being their child. They were not free to lie about it for the purpose of defrauding the College Board, which meets all of the standards of Brandenberg (inciting imminent lawless behavior that is then likely to occur).
> Second, this is not a strong argument in favor unless you happen to be an anti-vaxxer or simply lack empathy.
He spoke out against vaccines on Facebook, and suggested using papaya leaves and/or vitamin C instead. You don't have to be an anti-vaxxer or lack empathy to disagree with his being arrested for this.
>He spoke out against vaccines on Facebook, and suggested using papaya leaves and/or vitamin C instead.
In other words, he suggested people in the midst of an outbreak of a deadly, contagious but treatable disease avoid that treatment in favor of homeopathic bullshit that will only result in more deaths and further contagion.
Believing he should be allowed to do so without consequence shows a complete lack of empathy for his victims.
Sure, I totally disagree with him, but I'd like the bar for freedom of speech to be a bit higher that. He didn't specifically threaten anyone, and he's not dispensing advice in a professional capacity. He's just some guy with a different opinion, on that bastion of obvious truth known as Facebook posts. That opinion might lead someone who reads it to not get vaccinated, which might cause real problems, but just putting his opinion out there shouldn't be cause for arrest. In my, obviously unpopular, opinion.
> He's just some guy with a different opinion, on that bastion of obvious truth known as Facebook posts.
Not really, though. I searched his name and found an interview with Stuff magazine[0] which describes him as a "Samoan traditional healer and well known anti-vaxxer." It also describes his social media efforts as being far more active than "just putting his opinion out there" would imply. This isn't some random guy the government decided to harass for "wrongthink", He's an activist trying to undermine and hinder his government's attempt to vaccinate people in the midst of a medical emergency, as part of a greater anti-vaccination movement.
I find it interesting how people on HN are decidedly non-Utilitarian. I don't know, but for some reason I expected software engineers to be utilitarian.
> On the other hand, in the US freedom of speech would likely protect this person
I'm not so sure of that. You cannot yell "FIRE!" in a crowded American movie theater because of the danger it creates. The government in this case declared a state of emergency and this person ignored that emergency and instead fanned the anti-vaxx flames, which feels pretty similar to causing a stampede in a theater for no reason.
That seems like a cunning DA could argue reckless endangerment of a child to me...
This is not the standard in the US (although it's an incredibly common misconception), which is defined by Brandenberg v. Ohio, and requires " "directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action."[0] In other words, it must not only have a purpose of inciting _lawless_ (not dangerous) action, but likely to produce said action.
Additionally, while the case involves "fire in a crowded theater", it's in a substantially more narrow concurrence that holds that the speech would have to, additionally, _actually produce_ said action. Under existing the "fire in a crowded theater standard" suggested here, yelling "FIRE" in a packed theater, but everyone ignoring you would be protected.
For the sake of argument, the law in Samoa under the state of emergency is that you must vaccinate. Is the accused not attempting to incite lawless behavior by telling people to not vaccinate? If one person resists because they read his FB posts, that seems enough to me.
American law doesn't apply in Samoa (as opposed to American Samoa). But for the sake of argument, yes, it would satisfy part of one element ("directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action"). However it wouldn't satisfy the imminence requirement. Further, it would not satisfy the other ("is likely to incite or produce such action").
It's fairly easy to see that this is the case just by looking at what Americans have actually said. A memorable example to me was Zach de la Rosa telling the crowd at Coachella 2007 that every President since Truman should be lined up and shot. That is absolutely inciting lawless action, but no one with any kind of understanding of US free speech law would suggest he could be prosecuted.
I guess we don't know exactly what was posted from the article, but I was imagining that it wasn't just "Vaccines are bad" but rather something more like "Don't open your door when the emergency vaccinators come around", which would be advocating for imminent action.
I still think the only reason this wouldn't be illegal in the US is that the underlying law forcing vaccination would probably be unconstitutional, not that the First Amendment protects anti-vaxx speech indefinitely.
The US has applied imminent incredibly narrowly. "Don't open your door when the emergency vaccinators come around" would absolutely be protected speech in the US.
One man's rights can't be violated to save a few hundred/thousand lives?
Ideally, they shouldn't be but in a state of emergency, you can bet they will be and the Courts can sort it out after the fact.
It's not exactly like they took him out back and shot him for disagreeing. Though, it would be super ironic if he caught measles while locked up.
Going the Sith route, eh?
But seriously, parts of the Patriot Act are still in use and enforceable, and so far neither party has seriously taken any attempts to do away with it.
Is that "right" or "just" or "fair"? Hell no. But nobody ever said this life is fair.
I agree with your take. Other comments are going into freedom of speech or anti vaxxers and I think those are complicated issues but aren't quite the crux of this story.
A local legislator backed some vaccination legislation here in Oregon, and she cannot post anything to social media without a horde of people from that crazy death cult popping up to rant and screech.
Absolutely. Vaccines without proper safety and effectiveness results, and those without a decent cost-benefit ratio should not be required. Access to those which are safe and effective should not be denied.
It is in appropriate to call other individuals "death cult" or crazy. This does not lead to a constructive discussion on HN and leads to needless flamewars.
Actually it leads indirectly. But there's "vaccines cause autism" people and then there's "a vaccine killed my first baby and I don't want to give that vaccine to my second baby" people. Not to mention the "holy cow the USA has an intense vaccination schedule compared to other countries'" people.
The "beep boop vaccinate everybody" attitude is popular because it makes people feel smarter and morally superior to others.
What is the needed percentage of people that need to be vaccinated, for there to be herd immunity? And, what is the efficacy of the vaccine for Samoans?
That is if you need 80% immunized for herd immunity and 95% of the immunized group develop antibodies, then you need more than 80% to be immunized.
These arrests are anti-free-speech and therefore anti-freedom. This is a classic short-sighted decision that opens the door for widening definitions of crises, emergencies, etc. to justify any action or shut down opposing views.
While these arrests have a clear and problematic free speech issue, I also think societies should be careful to preserve bodily autonomy in instances like this. People have a right to decide what goes or doesn't go in their own or their children's bodies. They get to decide what risks they are willing to take or not willing to take. Bodily autonomy is also an important part of the argument to preserve a woman's right to choose (abortion rights).
Lastly - are people really factually wrong to distrust vaccines or the medical world in general? Note that this article mentions how nurses administered vaccines incorrectly previously (by mixing the vaccine with muscle relaxants), which is what set off public suspicion in the first place. That's the type of unexpected risk vector that spooks people and causes them to see risk even in highly-safe treatments, since some dangerous flaw can surprise patients out of nowhere. The medical world is full of stories of malpractice, orthogonal to the safety/efficacy of individual medicines. So it is totally understandable for people to sound the alarm and warn others.
I also want to point out that there are various legitimate stories or issues for people to view vaccines with speculation/distrust:
Talking about those issues openly and with precision (characterizing risks/tradeoffs transparently) is an important part of building public trust, getting things right, holding various parties accountable, and ultimately avoiding epidemics.
> Samoa declared a state of emergency, and made vaccinations compulsory.
As long as reasonable exceptions are made for children who can't get vaccinated due to medical conditions, and it's ensured that they get vaccines from reputed sources, I see nothing wrong with this.
As someone who has a kid who is still too young to get certain vaccines (including Measles), I am terrified of going to crowded places.
Seriously, unvaccinated people represent a threat to my son. This is not like being a flat-earther where you spread misinformation but you don't really harm people in a meaningful way. By spreading anti-vaxx information you are indirectly killing babies, children and adults. It is in the interest of society to stop you from doing harm.
I don't think so. If he is genuinely terrified of something that is that unlikely to kill or seriously harm his child, it would be in his interest to see a therapist about that. I am guessing that his statement was actually just needlessly hyperbolic, in which case I don't see anything wrong with a bit of antagonism.
I don’t know if anyone read the details, but the reason there’s concern is two babies died from receiving measles vaccines in 2018: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-50625680
“Samoa's low vaccination rates are in part due to the deaths in 2018 of two children given a wrongly-mixed vaccine.”
I think most rational people who are questioning the safety of vaccines are not the Jenny McCarthy autism fearists, it’s parents who are worried about vaccine safety from situations like this where two babies died. If it was your baby and you were doing the right thing by vaccinating and your baby died, how would you feel about vaccines after that? What if that baby that died was a relative? Your neighbor next door? Your coworkers baby? You might question the safety of vaccines after that.
The parents are already feeling bad about putting their trust in pharmaceutical companies, are they nuts to stay away from vaccines now?
I think many people take the side of “anti-vaxxers are the worst people in the world!” for granted because they’ve never had a relative or someone close to them die from a vaccine.
If vaccines are supposed to be safe, then why did this happen? Mistakes happen, but would you gamble that risk after having someone close to you dying from a vaccination?
Not vaccinating when everyone else is vaccinated is indeed a more advantageous game strategy, because there is no risk to die from the virus, and no risk to die from a mistake. The problem is that if enough people take that strategy, there will be no herd immunity and chance of dying from virus will become much larger than chance of dying from a mistake ever was.
The sentiment against anti-vaxxers is not simply because people do not empathise with the fears of anti-vaxxers, but because anti-vaxxers refuse to take the small risk everyone else is taking, and in doing so endanger other people who could not get vaccination because of other illness.
And what about if your baby dies from measles because you didn't vaccinate them? What if the baby that died was a relative? Your neighbor next door? You coworkers baby? You might question the sanity of anti-vaxxers after that.
Worse yet, what if your baby can't get the vaccine because they have another disease that precludes getting a vaccine? What if your baby dies because there isn't any more herd immunity?
Two babies dying in 2018 from a wrongly-mixed vaccine is a travesty, but that was a medical mistake. Thousands of babies dying because of ignorance and arrogance is the real sin.
The problem with arguing against anti-vaxxers is the disconnect between vaccinations and the lives they save.
Proper vaccination is entirely invisible. When people die due to a vaccination not being 100% effective or due to a bad reaction, people claim it's useless. Then more people stop vaccinating, which then hurts herd immunity and makes the vaccine less effective which then causes more people to not take it and start a nasty cycle.
You can't point to the lives vaccines have saved until you have a travesty caused by people not being vaccinated. Unfortunately this cycle will likely make completely eradicating diseases in the future really difficult without compulsory vaccinations.
Everything may as well be invisible if you refuse to look at it. There have been very, very few studies done on the long term effects of vaccines. All the general public knows is that the CDC [1] assures them that they "know there is not a plausible biologic reason to believe vaccines would cause any serious long-term effects." [2]
The widespread belief in the correctness of this almost entirely untested hypothesis is worth tens of billions of dollars per year to private corporations, by the way.
The vaccination debate makes me sad and pessimistic. I am an avid proponent of vaccination in general but also of people's right to refuse them.
It's remarkable that things like Tuskegee are so quickly forgotten, and upsetting to me how quickly the issues become so oversimplified. I feel alienated in believing education, transparency, and rewards for prosocial behavior are the best way forward.
What a gross, disingenuous framing. 'Vaccines' did not kill them. One specific instance of medical malpractice did. You should be worried about the specific people and companies involved in that incident. Being worried about all vaccines everywhere in the world because of this is completely irrational.
Those children didn't die from a vaccine, and you're fundamentally wrong to imply that they did. They died because of human error administering a vaccine. If you put some vaccine into a bullet and then shoot someone in the face with it, they died because they got shot in the face, not because vaccines are dangerous.
Of course things can go wrong in medicine, but that's not related to vaccines. If this is the kind of concern you have, you should never allow any doctor to put a needle in you, because it might be contaminated with something. You also shouldn't take any medications prescribed by a doctor because the pharmacist might mix them up with something. You certainly shouldn't ever have surgery, because the surgeon might misread the chart and perform the wrong procedure. Of course errors are possible in medicine, but that doesn't mean that needles/medications/surgery are inherently dangerous, it just means that human error happens. If you choose to never use healthcare for that reason, then you're wildly irrational (which is fine, just don't harm children because of your wild irrationality).
I hear what you are saying in the first paragraph. But it doesn't logically support what you state in your second paragraph. I can question the medications that I am prescribed and choose to take them or not. I can decide to get the surgery or I can decide not to or I can get another opinion. It doesnt have to be an all or nothing decision.
Edited to add: The issue in this story is that someone is spreading false information and people are acting on it and people are dying. Truly sad.
> Those children didn't die from a vaccine, ... They died because of human error administering a vaccine.
This is a bad argument and does not work in practice, because people perceive it as a language trick. If a child was vaccinated and then died in a result of the process, most people call it "die from a vaccine" independently from the mechanism. Trying to make the risk of the process look smaller than it is by focusing attention on technical details makes conspirologically minded people who do not understand the details even more suspicious.
In other cases you mention people go to doctor, because they can clearly see that not going is way more risky. So a better argument is to remind them that if enough people choose to skip the vaccine the danger from the virus will be much higher than the danger of nurse making a mistake.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandenburg_v._Ohio